Mi Casa
by Wilwarren
Summary: Elena and Damon share the boarding house during their search for Stefan. Along with ghosts of old vampires, many suppressed feelings and tension. Action and mystery mixed with Damon/Elena intimate moments! Read! Post-finale, D/E, Rated M
1. Moving on

**Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Diaries or any of the characters but God I wish I would!**

**A.N.: Hello everyone! How are you all handling the hiatus so far? Me not good. Hence the fanfiction. I hope you're gonna like it. This is going to be a multi-chaptered story, and I will update it more quickly if you give me some feedback! So please review! Love,Wil**

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><p>22 days. 17 unanswered phone calls. 65 text messages. 1 brother, who became a medium, and tons of complicated feelings.<p>

That was my life in numbers, ever since Stefan left all of us, but most importantly me. I told Jeremy that the best way to survive is to live our lives day by day until it gets bearable, but it didn't seem to get any better. In fact every new day brought another bad news. First, my brother started to see ghosts, who seemed to appear in all the most inconvenient times just to haunt him. He didn't know how to handle the situation and neither did I. Bonnie was no help at all. She felt very guilty about it, convinced that it was her fault. I haven't blamed her, she didn't have another choice, Jeremy's life was at stake. Anyway, her powers were weakening as she was afraid to use them. The witches didn't help either, they refused to do anything else. And to top it all that we had a little bit of a financial crisis, what Jenna concealed from us. It was strange, how the secrets in this family, which we kept to protect each other, tend to turn into disasters. Alaric tried to smooth the drama, by applying as our legal guardian, since he was the closest to the family as the ex-husband of my biological mother. What made him even more suitable for the post was his commitment to us. Too bad the authorities haven't considered that as top priority. So now he was now running from lawyer to lawyer trying very hard to be our daddy.

If that wasn't enough problems, I still had a missing boyfriend and his older brother, who I didn't know how to treat.

I thought that life would be easier by now. We took care of the big bad evil, I survived. Stefan and I should be happy together. Well it seemed like life in Mystic Falls was not a fairy tale, there were no happy endings to any story.

I was checking my phone again for the hundredth time today. I sighed when it displayed no new messages. I was still hoping Stefan would contact me somehow. For the first few days I had been writing him pleading texts to come back. After that, I just asked for any kind of proof that he was okay. By now, I just sent him updates about our lives here. I knew he received them all, but I had no idea why he hadn't answered me anything. One moment I was convinced that he couldn't for some reason. The next second I was thinking he just didn't care anymore. Anyway, I persistently wrote him about the news here. My phone became my diary I was writing to Stefan.

Of course I couldn't write him everything. Me being scared was one of these things. I didn't want him to worry about me. For the same reason I haven't told him I felt completely lost. And I certainly wasn't going to let him know that I kissed Damon, because I felt extremely guilty about it, mainly because I wasn't really regretting it.

It seemed just okay, to give him what he craved for on his death bed. It was very innocent. Despite the fact that I had told him there's hope, I hadn't really thought that he would make it. What damage a little kiss could do? Nobody would know about it and he would die happy. But he survived. Which is good news of course, but last confessions are quite embarrassing when you outlive them.

So here we stood now with Damon. The embarrassing part. We handled it the best way we could. With big silences, by avoiding each other and by a lot of scotch on his part. No wonder we couldn't come up with one reasonable plan about how to start searching for Stefan. We were all falling apart.

I put my phone back into my bag and was headed to school when Alaric stepped inside the house. He seemed really tired and he had his _bringer-of-bad-news_ face on. That one I learned to recognize.

"Everything's okay?"

He just shook his head. Of course not, stupid question.

"Is Jeremy home?" he asked looking around for my brother.

"No, he already left. What happened?" I questioned him with a raising anxiety in my voice.

"We need to talk."

He took my bag away from me and walked me back to the living room. I supposed it was urgent, so I collapsed onto to sofa getting ready for the regularly scheduled drama.

"Elena, I spent the last two days with lawyers and the people from the authorities to find a solution to the legal guardian problem."

I knew that, and I figured if he sat down to talk to me they made some kind of progress. His face was telling me I would not gonna like it.

"It seems like they only let me take care of you if I can guarantee your financial security," he continued. "You know my place is a rent. And there's no way we could maintain this house with my salary."

"What does that mean?" I asked suspiciously.

He answered after a little pause.

"I think we have to sell the house."

My heart sank. This was my parents' house. The one I grew up in and I loved it. This was supposed to be my house.

"If we could make a deposit from it for your college education I think it will be good enough for the custodian office. Otherwise I'm not sure this is gonna work."

This all sounded very reasonable. To be honest I had my doubt about whether we could keep this house or not. But saying that out loud and forcing us to decide about it was very difficult. And it also raised another question.

"But where would be living then?" I inquired, but I knew the answer to that question before he answered.

"You have another house."

Oh, no. Hell, no.

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><p><strong>Stay tuned, in the next chapter Elena is going to move in!<strong>


	2. Moving in

**A.N.: Thank you for everyone for the kind reviews! You are very sweet. And as promised here's the next chapter of my story. The deal's the same, you write a review and I upload the next chapter as fast as I could. Love, Wil**

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><p>So here I stood at the doorway of the one place I was trying so hard to avoid. And I was moving in. I would be living under one roof with Damon, the reason of my confusion. Of course I have lived in the same house with him, but that was different, because I was here with Stefan. That very fact led me to my other dilemma. Where would I be sleeping?<p>

My first thought was Stefan's room since I had many of my stuff already there. But I decided against it. If I would be living here on the long term, and I wasn't sure about that just now, I would want a place that I could call my own. So I started looking for a suitable room which I thought wouldn't be an easy task, because most of the rooms in the boarding house were dark and depressing. Yeah, that was a house of two vampires, what would you expect.

Jeremy found his room immediately. I thought it would be harder for him to leave our parent's house but he said that is was no home anymore, so basically it made no difference where we lived. I guess he was right. That was just a building nothing made it home anymore. In addition, I secretly hoped that if we would leave that haunted place his visions would decrease.

To my greatest surprise the last room I looked in was just perfect. It had a big window and was brighter than any other room I was in. The light colored draperies and modern furniture was just what I wanted. My previous room could fit in it at least twice. I dropped my bag onto the king sized bed.

"Good choice," I heard Damon saying as he passed by before my door.

That was the first and only thing he said to me since we decided to move in. Alaric discussed it with him, since it was basically his house no matter what the papers said. As Ric said, he made no opposition. Although his cryptic smile told me there was more in that conversation, although he refused to tell me anything else. Guy's honor, I think. Anyway, since we started to pack in Damon acted like a ghost, one, that not only Jeremy could see. He appeared here and there but never said a word or even looked at me.

I considered for a second to go after him and tell him to stop acting like a toddler. After all nothing serious happened. That kiss was really nothing. It was no big deal, we could almost describe it brotherly. Expect I doubt that I would have that warming feeling every time I thought about it, if it would really be that innocent. I immediately decided that keeping distance was maybe a better idea. All right, maybe we were both toddlers.

So instead of confronting him I started packing out and forming the room to my taste. It wasn't a difficult task, since it wasn't so far from it to begin with. It was very similar to my former room both in design and… _Wait a minute_. I just noticed that the bed was the same brand and type than my own, just bigger. That couldn't be a coincidence. I looked around again and I spotted another similarities. The colors, the mirror on the wall, the patterns on the carpet and the curtains.

Not bothering to drop the clothes I was currently holding I marched into Damon's bedroom without knocking.

"Did you do that?" I claimed not sure it sounded awed or furious.

"I did a lot of things. Which one concerns you?" he asked not lifting his eyes from the book he was reading, laying comfortably in his bed. The very same bed in where we… _Elena, don't let it distract you._

"You copied my room!"

"I did not" he protested, still not looking at me, but when I opened my mouth to disagree he continued. "They don't make that kind of drawer anymore."

I was speechless. Even I didn't know what kind of drawer I had. He wasn't in my room so many times, as far as I know, and he managed to remember every little detail about it, and made an effort to refurnish an entire room for me. That was… sweet.

"Do you like it?" he asked finally turning towards me when I stood there mute for about two minutes.

"Yes" I managed to groan while trying to suppress the urge to run there and hug him.

"Good" he said simply turning back to his book. "Have you brought those for me?"

I was puzzled for a moment as to what he had meant, but then suddenly I realized he was referring to the clothes I was holding. I looked down on them, blushing instantly, because I brought some of my panties and bras with myself to his bedroom.

"No!" I shouted sharply and quickly hid them behind my back.

He just smiled his smug smile of his and I was suddenly furious. How dared he flirt with me in this blasphemous manner and read so nonchalantly when he should be out searching for his brother, who sacrificed everything for him, whatever that meant.

"Are you having a good time?" I hissed pointing my head to the paperback.

He just kept smiling then slapped the book together and jumped up from the bed. He tossed it onto the covers and slowly started to walk towards me.

"In fact I do," he said on a seductive tone, clearly not talking about the book any more. "It's quite a page-turner, you should read it too."

The way he swayed towards me I thought he was going to grab me and kiss me. See, that was my problem with him recently. I never feared that he would do such a thing before. Not because I believed he wouldn't do anything like that, but because I was sure I wouldn't let him. I had to admit I wasn't so sure now. Fortunately I didn't have to make that decision because he just walked past me, leaving me in his bedroom alone. I was sure though that he quickly glimpsed at the underwear behind my back as he marched off.

I blew out the air I didn't even realized I was holding. I was just about to leave as well when something caught my eyes. The book was wide open at his bed, must have unfolded when he flung it there. What was strange that is was hand written. One of the Gilbert journal was my first guess, but it had a different cover. And it was bigger and thicker than any of them. I drew nearer to have a closer look. It was stuffed with ancient parchments, they peeped out here and there from behind the yellow pages. I drew one out. It was Stefan's birth certificate. My heart started to pound heavily. I turned a few pages and all the pages from the notebook and all the additional newspaper cuttings and drawings, period memoirs and photos were about Stefan. His whole life before and after he became a vampire. What was that? I turned to the front page and I suddenly went pale. Klaus' name was written on the front page as the proprietor of the journal. But the last page was the most shocking.

It was a family tree of the Originals. Elijah somehow forgot to mention that the Originals had descendents. Human descendents. The branches spread out into every direction but most of them where quite short, like the line died out. On the tip of every extinct branch one name where circled with red ink. Most of them were unknown to me but one I knew too well. The Salvatore family. The bloodline ended with two names: Stefan and Damon Salvatore. The younger brother's name was circled with red ink. Or on the closer look it was blood.

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><p><strong>If you want to know more put me on alert and review!<strong>


	3. Moving forward

**A.N.: Thank you again for your awesome reviews. Let me just say that I'm not quite satisfied with this chapter, but it was necessary for the plot. You can tell me what YOU think of it in the reviews. Love,Wil**

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><p>"So, what's this?" asked Jeremy as we all gathered around the kitchen table circling the ominous journal of Klaus. It was opened at the page which showed the lineage of the Originals. Everybody looked at it like it was the Holy Grail.<p>

"It's a family tree."

Well, everybody, except for Damon of course.

"We knew that Damon, thank you," I huffed irritated. Sometimes I envied his ease, but most of the time it just bugged me. He just raised his glass at me as an answer. That bugged me too.

"But what does it mean?" asked Caroline now.

"That I have an evil hybrid great-uncle."

"We figured that out too, Damon!" I retorted, starting to get really annoyed.

We eyed each other for a couple of seconds angrily; then Damon pushed himself away from the board and headed to the living room, clearly for another shot.

"I see you don't need my expertise anymore," he called back behind his back.

I sighed. He was kind of impossible to bear after the surfacing of the notebook. Or maybe it was just me, but everything about him pissed me off. Like anything. Just the way he talked, walked or even looked at me. I glanced at Alaric for guidance. We eased into this parent-child situation pretty smoothly. '_What should I do with him?' _I asked him with my eyes. '_Go after him.' _He replied the same silent manner nodding his head towards his leaving form.

So I did. Not surprisingly I found him pouring himself another drink. He didn't turn around when I halted a few steps behind him, but I knew he knew I was there. We stood our ground for about two silent minutes. It was a game. Who would start The Talk? Since I didn't have all eternity to wait for him to proceed I gave in.

"What's the deal with you, Damon?" I asked trying to be as collected as I could.

"What's the deal with you, Elena?" he copied my question while turning towards me, but he didn't sound so calm.

I folded my arms around myself, preparing for the inevitable fight.

"What do you mean?"

"You jump on my every word. Which is no novelty, but I haven't even done anything now."

"That's the problem you know!" I shouted at him feeling totally not myself. He just turned me inside out, although he really hasn't done anything. But I just couldn't stop my rage. All my hard feelings towards him wanted to be out. "You don't even care. You just glad he's out of the picture, right?"

I regretted everything I just said the second I said them. Maybe that was what I thought, but saying that out loud it sounded really harsh. In my head it seemed valid, but the hurtful and angry look on his face knocked holes in it.

I had the chance to see the damage I had done on the close-up, because he jumped at me at super speed, smashing the glass to the floor in the process. His eyes flared and his features were hardened.

"I don't care? Maybe our bond of 145 years is not as strong as your undying love of, I don't know, six months, but contrary to the common belief I care about my brother," he hissed in front of me and I felt the urge to turn my head and apologize, but I needed to hear it and he needed to say it so we could move forward. So I kept the eye contact and tried not to flinch. "I would have done the same for him."

I was kind of offended about how he relegated our relationship with Stefan, but on the other hand I did the same with their brotherly bond, so I called it even. But he wasn't finished.

"As to you," he started with a lot softer expression on his face. I wasn't sure we were ready for this conversation. We just threw all kind of imprudence at each other; it was very inadvisable to discuss our delicate situation just now. Not to mention we were close. Very close. Our bodies were almost touching and just a few inches closer and our lips would have met. He seemed to notice this too because he quickly glimpsed at my lips before he continued. "I don't want you to be with me by lack of better choice."

Tears of regret started to run down on my cheeks. Sometimes I just forgot Damon wasn't shielded against my attacks. If anyone could hurt him, that was me. He started to lift his hand to wipe away my tears when we heard Alaric's voice behind our back.

"Everything's okay?" he asked worried. He must have heard the shouting and glass breaking and came to check on us. I wonder for how long he had been here. We shared one last sorrowful glance and stepped away from each other in unison.

"Sure," he answered in the name of both of us. "We were just about to head back to the brainstorming."

Alaric just nodded, obviously not believing it, but he didn't force the subject. Although he didn't move until we actually made a move to go back to the kitchen. Jeremy, Bonnie and Caroline still leaned in examining the document, pretending like they haven't heard anything. Everybody walked tip-toe around Damon and me, like we were a bomb. I was starting to feel like we were.

Damon and I occupied the spots we left around the table.

"Let's conclude what we already know," instructed Alaric who became the conductor of our little meeting.

"The Original family seems to have bad blood," started Bonnie. "No offence," she smiled apologetically at Damon who just waved his hand to continue.

"All the branches died out relatively fast," continued Jeremy as we all checked the short lines.

"We know why the Salvatores couldn't carry on the name," remarked Alaric diplomatically.

"Because we couldn't make vampire babies," pointed out Damon.

"Right," carried on Ric. "But what happened to the others?"

We all glared at the genealogical tree right before us trying to figure out it's secret. What happened to these people? Why were some of them marked? A couple of minutes later, what we spent in deep study, Damon scared us all by smashing his palms on the table.

"I know her!"

We looked at her quizzically. He pointed to a name at an extinct branch. The woman's name was Angela. He had two brother's named Bernard and Leonard, according to the document. Her name was circled just like Stefan's. She was born in 1890.

"How do you know her?" asked Bonnie.

"We …met," he said quickly. Too quickly, so we could all figure out the nature of said meeting.

"Eeww, that's gross," commented Caroline followed by a grimace.

"Come on, I didn't know she was my niece or what!" he protested throwing his hands in the air. "Really," he said that only to me like his past affairs should concern me. I just nodded _'whatever'_. His former liaisons didn't stir me at all, but a scary thought occurred to me, namely, that his current conquests would distress me quite a bit. I quickly dismissed the idea from my head, forcing myself to concentrate on the subject before us.

"His brothers died young. But she didn't," Damon filled us in.

"When did she die? It doesn't show it here," asked Caroline looking at the leaf her name was written on.

"As far as I know she's still breathing," said Damon cryptically and only continued when we all looked at him for the full explanation. "She's a vampire."

We needed a few moments to recover after that information and a few more for the puzzles to click into place. I quickly checked all the marked names and none of them showed the date of death. They were all vampires. What a weird setback that almost every family originated from the first vampire family died out by becoming vampire themselves. Or maybe it wasn't a coincidence after all. Moreover, it seemed that only one person from every family became a vampire and earned the red mark. Except for the Salvatores. Two vampires, one mark.

An idea occurred to me. It seemed like Klaus wanted himself a new family. One he could dominate with his age and power. And he wanted Stefan for that family. This meant, that he would have taken him anyway, the cure was just a good cover.

I looked at Damon looking for sights of relief. It wasn't his fault and Stefan must still be alive. That was good news. If he followed the same logic as I did he must have made a same conclusion.

But he didn't. He looked betrayed and utterly confused. He just looked at me and spoke to me like I was the only person in the room.

"Why didn't he take me?" he said stricken.

My heart sank. Despite the fact that he wouldn't have wanted to take place willingly in Klaus' evil scheme; once again someone had chosen Stefan over him.

"I'm sorry, Elena," he said his voice was low and was full with guilt. I knew this time he would have wanted to beat Stefan to save him. He was sorry for not being enough for whatever Klaus was looking for.

I just shook my head. I wanted to tell him it wasn't his fault, but I decided against the words and just hugged him, right in front of everybody. He held me tight and we stayed like that while everyone around us disappeared and all we had was each other.

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><p><strong>I may not be able to upload the next chapter this fast, but I won't make you wait for long. Prepare yourself for more twists and a lot more DELENA!<strong>


	4. Plotting

_**A.N.: Hello, folks! Again, huge thanks to everybody who reviewed my story. Please, make a practice of doing it. You're lovely.**_

_**Anyway here's the next chapter of the story. Enjoy.**_

_**Love,Wil**_

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><p><em>-We R coming 4 U.-<em>

I stared at the display of my phone, my fingers were hovering over the 'Send' button. I was so eager to tell him that we had a plan to rescue him from Klaus. As if he wanted to be saved, I was not sure anymore. I remembered the stories he told me about his past, when he was crazed with blood thirst. He said he was worse than Damon. I was trying to believe that he was stronger than that, but I have witnessed how weak he was when it came to human blood. And I presumed there was no chance drinking bunny blood with Klaus. We already know what they were doing together.

But somehow I just couldn't imagine _that_ Stefan. I just couldn't accept the fact that he could have changed.

And there was another reason I wanted so desperately Stefan to know that I still cared about him. That was atonement. I wasn't unfaithful; I haven't considered that kiss with Damon cheating on him. That wasn't a kiss of love on my part, just a kiss of goodbye. I was atone for my thoughts ever since.

"Erase it!" surprised me Damon's voice from behind my back. At first I thought he meant I should erase my head, but just after a second I realized he referred to the text message.

He was very close to me, he was basically whispering to my ear. The thoughts that crossed my mind the second I felt his breath on my neck should doom me an eternity in hell. Luckily our bodies didn't touch, because he would have felt the tremor that run though me.

"He needs to know" I told him, straightening my voice as much as I could.

"No, he doesn't. Everything he knows, Klaus knows."

God, I wish he would stop whispering in my ear. It took me almost an entire minute to realize that I have free will. Cursing myself for letting him affect me such, I took a step forward and turned around. I could have done that earlier. His smug smile reflected the exact same thing. Now, that there was some space between us I collected myself and my thoughts, and acted unaware of the tension between us.

"Do you think it's a trap?"

"Of course I do," he stated so squarely like I should have known this earlier. But how should I? We just laid out the plan this morning and it got me very excited. Finally we were going somewhere, doing something. There was hope. Until now. He just crashed my good mood.

When he saw my long face and he continued to explain.

"Come on, Elena. You really don't think that I could get that journal if he wouldn't want me to."

Since I still wasn't familiar with the story of how he obtained that notebook in the first place, I couldn't know the answer to that question. I guessed that it did include some serious bloodshed that he didn't want me to know about.

"Then why are we doing this?" I asked resigned.

"Because we don't have another idea."

I cancelled the message.

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><p><em>EARLIER THAT DAY<em>

"_So this Calvin guy is the last human of the linage?" summed Bonnie our discovery. We were gathered in the living room on the boarding house. Everybody walked back and forth in the room, excited, that finally we had something. Well Damon was the exception again, of course. He stretched himself out on the sofa, legs on the armrest. _

"_Looks like it. He's fifteen. No date of death, no mark. He's not a vampire," concluded Alaric what we learned from the journal._

"_Yet," said Jeremy._

_It was sad. Poor kid, may not even know what was coming for him. It must really suck to become a vampire at fifteen. Not even a chance to live a normal teenage life. Not like I had a normal teenage life…_

"_How do we know Klaus haven't turned him already? He could have gone for him right away," asked Caroline what everyone thought about._

"_Nah, I don't think so. If I were him I would gather the vampires first. Build up some muscle, then the babysitting," commented Damon._

_So we circled the subject from every direction but we always came to the same result. If we wanted to find Stefan, this guy was our one and only chance. Klaus would come for the kid. And we planned to be there. What would be doing with them, we had no idea. Klaus couldn't be killed as far as we know. Although we didn't want to kill him. We just wanted Stefan back._

"_All right then," started Commander Saltzman. "I would be checking the school records; he must be attending school somewhere."_

"_Bonnie, could you muster up some kind of protection spell for us for the meeting?" he asked my friend. I could see Bonnie was afraid about it, but nodded nonetheless and left._

"_Caroline you are on Facebook duty," he turned towards our vampire girl. "He's fifteen; he's got to be on internet. Find him." Caroline also went off to do her part._

"_Jeremy, check the news. Try to guess where they are now, how they are progressing." That was Jeremy's cue._

"_Massacre watch…" muttered Damon on a low voice, but since I was standing next to him I could hear it. Yes, that was that Jeremy tried to do lately. He searched for animal attacks and mysterious disappearances. There was nothing special. Although he found a couple of reports of brutal murders with lot of blood and many bodies. They weren't even tried to cover their tracks. Klaus wasn't hiding anymore. And I doubted that he had done it alone, and that scared the hell out of me. They were tried to hide it from me at the beginning, but I saw some of those case's description. I felt sorry for Stefan, but at the same time I was disgusted by the thought that he partaken in all of these. Yet I still wanted to have him out of Klaus' range._

"_Damon," Alaric turned to him now. "Don't screw it up."_

"_Aye, aye, Captain," saluted Damon back at him. _

_Only I was left without a task. I looked at Alaric questioningly. He just nodded slightly towards Damon who still laid on the sofa, eyes closed. _

_I knew what he wanted from me. I should keep Damon away from his stroke of genius side plans. Like that would be easy._

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><p>Alaric's suspicion was not ill-founded about the older Mr. Salvatore. I knew he was up to something, I recognized that sly look on his face as one of the premonitory signs of bad Damon decisions. I have seen it enough. But I wouldn't let him ruin the plan and our only chance.<p>

I planned to confront him alone, but everybody was running around in the house like headless chickens, discussing the newfound information. Like that Calvin kid lived in Los Angeles. Or that Jeremy could track down Klaus' path by the police reports. They were headed in a different direction. Damon was right. He was mocking us. Klaus let us have his journal to figure out his plan. His actions basically shouted his message: _You cannot stop me._ Although we had to try.

The first opportunity to find Damon alone only came when everybody went home or to his room to get some rest. I sneaked into the corridor, not wanting anybody to know that I was visiting Damon's room at midnight. They may get the wrong idea.

For the same reason I skipped knocking, he would hear I came in anyway. He was standing next to his bed waiting for me to step in. He was only wearing a black pyjama bottom and a flaunty smile. He looked absolutely gorgeous and I had to force myself not to gawk at him. I had to focus on my mission.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked, emphasizing the word 'pleasure'.

I closed the door behind myself but didn't move from it. I was trying to keep a good distance between us.

"I want to know what do you want to do."

"Hmm," he snorted with a wide smile."You don't want to know."

I was absolutely sure he wasn't answering my question. At least not the one I meant. He took a step towards me in that predatory style, his smirk not leaving his face. Since I couldn't retreat I just held up my hand to keep him away. He stopped when my hand reached his chest. I basically stopped breathing then.

"Or do you?" he asked in a low voice. He must have heard my heart beating and my ragged breath from that distance. You couldn't fool a vampire in that department.

"Stop that," I ordered him but it came out nothing more than a sigh.

"Stop what?"

It was hard to form coherent thoughts and thinking of valid reasons when he was staring at me with his piercing blue eyes and my hand was still on his chest. Suddenly a fair enough objection came into my mind.

"Don't you think you're disrespecting your brother's sacrifice with this behavior?"

Something passed though his face, but I couldn't quite translate it. Maybe it was anger, maybe guilt, but soon it formed into a sad smile.

"Then I have been doing it for a long time, because nothing's new with me," he lifted his hand to stroke my hair. I almost forgot what we were talking about. "I act the same; I feel the same like before. But it suddenly disturbs you. So I think you should ask yourself the question whether everything is the same on your part?"

He was looking into my eyes and I couldn't lie. Something changed. I was not sure it was good, or I was happy about it or not, but something definitely was different. I was different. If it wasn't so then none of this would affect me. I was angry with him because I was blaming him for the feelings he evoked in me. But I had to take the responsibility sooner or later and admit myself that I was the one who disrespected Stefan.

Tears started to form in the corner of my eyes. I had no idea what should I do. Do I listen to the still small voice that was telling me to stay away? Or do I listen to the loud pounding of my heart pulling me closer to Damon?

He just stayed there, unmoving, his hand still in my hair, waiting for me to decide. He wasn't pressuring me, didn't make a move and didn't say a word to avert me into any direction. It was my choice alone. It wasn't fair I had to make it while I felt his skin under my palm. He deserved a well- thought-out answer for this question.

Well, cool headed Elena was out of the building, because I found myself drawing closer to him and putting my other hand on his chest as well. I could feel that all the muscles tensed in his body but he still hadn't moved like he was afraid to scare me off. But right then nothing could prevent me from kissing him.

Nothing, except a loud and frightened yell coming from my brother's room.

Damon and I looked at each other momentarily, mourning our moment, but we hurried out the door the next second. I was the first to rush into Jeremy's room.

"What happened?" I asked but his pale face and sweaty forehand said it for him. Another ghost.

"It's all right," I tried to calm him down by sitting beside him on his bed and taking his hand.

"Damn, this bitches are hard to brush off," commented Damon a lot grimly referring to Vicki and Anna.

"No, it wasn't one of them this time," said Jeremy a little out of breath.

"Who was it then?" I asked wondering who could scare him so much.

"It was Elijah."

I looked at him at first, and then at Damon, whose confused look slowly turned into a full diabolical sneer.

"Change of plans."

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><p><strong>Hands up everybody who absolutely love Elijah! I know I do! Stay with me for the next chapter!<strong>


	5. Waking up

**A.N.: Hello everybody, thank you for your wonderful reviews. An even bigger thank you goes to the lovely readers who reviewed this story chapter by chapter. It' great to see that you're with me.  
>This chapter is a little plotless, but I felt the need the clear the air a little. I really like this chapter; I think it's a turning point. I hope you will enjoy it too. Love, Wil<strong>

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><p>"How is that even possible?" asked Bonnie confused as we filled her in the morning. "I mean as to our last information Elijah was alive."<p>

"Maybe Klaus is not such an honorable gentleman as we all thought," scoffed Damon.

Yes, that was the only plausible explanation. Elijah must be dead. As dead as an Original vampire could be.

"And why is this a good thing for us?" she asked still not catching up with our train of thought.

Damon threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. He was hyped ever since we knew about Elijah's state and he was frustrated someone was breaking his stride. It was strange to see him so excited, but it was kind of fun. He was like a little boy a day before Christmas. I was trying to hide my inappropriate smile.

"Come on Bonnie, work with us here," he said impatiently snapping his fingers.

"You don't tell me you want to wake him again!" hailed Bonnie, jumping up from her seat.

Damon finally stood still for a moment, for the first time since this morning, but just for throwing a devious smile towards Bonnie.

"Not just him."

Bonnie shook her head rapidly. It was her time to pace the room. Geez, these two would bore a hole the the floor of the hall if they keep up doing that. I just sat there on the sofa waiting out what happens. I already knew Damon's plan. I wasn't exactly in peace with it, but it was way better and much promising than the previous one. Of course waking up an entire family of basically indestructible vampires had its disadvantages; but we were going by the hope of them following the rule of 'Your enemy's enemy is your friend'.

"But… No! And more importantly, how? No!" protested Bonnie not very coherently. "You don't even know where they are. We will never find them."

Damon heaved the sigh of weariness, rolling his eyes at Bonnie.

"Come on, witch, use your upper story. They are here."

"And how do we know that?" asked Bonnie incredulously.

"I bet Klaus didn't wait to get rid of his lil bro, he killed him right away, which means he hid his body before they left. Plenty of places in Mystic Falls, favorite town of the dead and alike."

"Exactly, plenty of places! Even if you're right, if Klaus hid them we will never find them."

"Of course we will."

"How?"

"We will ask a resident."

Every one of us looked at Jeremy who just walked into the room.

"What?" he asked dumbfounded.

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><p><em>I was in a room full of bodies. Girls. I could barely walk without trampling on them, but I needed to get into the other side of the room. He was waiting for me. I took a few steps but I tripped over in an outstretched arm. I looked down although I knew I shouldn't. The girl's blank eyes stared back at me. She looked like me. Not an exact match like Katherine, but she was similar. Long brown hair, akin features, skinny figure. I frantically looked around and realized that every one of them is my type of girl. And they were all dead.<em>

_I grew stiff, I refused to take another step. The figure, who up to now was standing at the opposite wall, slowly started to pace towards me. First, I couldn't recognize him, the shadows concealed his face. But when he was just a few feet away from me I could see it was Stefan. He walked the room without difficulty, because unlike me, he didn't care about dishonoring the bodies. He basically treaded on top of them. Bones were cracking as he approached, but he didn't lose his pleasant smile. I was shaking. I didn't want him any closer but I couldn't move._

_Finally he was right in front of me._

"_I missed you," he said and he looked around, like he did this all for me. I could see he was proud of his handiwork._

_When he turned back, his eyes were black and his fangs were ready._

"_Don't be jealous. I still only want you," he said to me softly then he bit down. I screamed._

And I woke up screaming in my bed. Someone grabbed me by my shoulders and I tried to shake it off thinking I was still in the dream. I could hear someone calling my name, but it wasn't Stefan. It was Damon. I never thought I would be much happier seeing Damon than his brother but right then I couldn't imagine anyone I would love to see more. I crashed into his bare chest, hugging him tightly. He wrapped his arms around me, stroking my hair and whispering to me like I was a little girl.

After a few minutes of sobbing I got over my dream, but I just stayed in his arms, because it felt so nice. I was feeling secure there. But since I couldn't stay there forever I slowly unfolded myself from his embrace.

"It was just a bad dream," I tried to ease his, and my, anxiety away.

"No shit."

Despite his casual choice of words I could see the worry in his eyes. My hands were still in his and he wouldn't let go.

"I'm good now."

He looked at me obviously not believing that, but he took it as a request to leave.

"All right," he just said and stood up from the bed, holding my hand as far as he could. When he let go and my arm felt back at my laps I already missed his touch.

He was almost out of my room when I took the courage to ask him the question I was dreaded to face for weeks now.

"Do you think he enjoys it?"

Damon halted just a step away from my door, rubbing his temple before facing me. I put him into a very different situation, I knew that. He was evidently brooded on whether he should answer to that question or not. I was sure that despite the fact that dumping on Stefan might increase his chances of having me, he wouldn't want to do that. First of all he was his brother.

"What do you want me say to that, Elena?" he asked bushed.

"The truth."

It took all I have to ask this, but I needed to know. I was having these nightmares for days now. They were all the same. Stefan doing sick things with girls he rather enjoys. Then he comes to me and wants to do the same with me. It wouldn't bother me unless I thought it could be true. And I did.

"I don't know the truth. I can't see inside his head," he dodged my inquiry with a semi-answer.

"I want to know what you think. You know him the best," I narrowed down the question to come before the smoke-screen.

He surrendered with a sigh, but didn't come closer.

"We're vampires, Elena. Killing is our nature. We all enjoy it, whether we want to admit it or not. Some of us learn to control it, others indulge in it."

He stopped to check how I was doing. Inside I yelled him to stop, but outside I put on a straight face and tried not to flinch. He continued coming a few steps closer. His eyes told me to stop him whenever I want to. I just nodded to go on.

"Stefan was one of the latter. But one day he stopped and skipped the phase when you learn to control it. He haven't changed, just suppressed that part of him. That's why he could revert so quickly back to it."

I couldn't keep on with the façade by that time. Tears were rolling down my cheek. I was crying way too much these days.

"So the answer to your question is yes. There's a fairly good chance we also have to save him from himself."

I nodded between two sobs, grateful that he let me know all of these even if I felt that his every word hit a hole inside my heart. But deep down I knew all of this. I knew that it wouldn't be easy to drag him back to the right path and I didn't have a clue whether I had the strength to do it.

"I don't know if I can… you know," I started, but the thing I wanted to say was so ruthless I couldn't even phrase it.

"Forgive him?" he said instead of me.

I covered my face with my palms in my shame of even thinking about this, but I couldn't help it. I was aware he didn't started it by his own will and he was forced into this, but as I imagined the things he had done I felt nothing but disgust. And the guilt ate me up inside.

Damon sat back to my bed, next to me. He leaned back and pulled me with him until my head was rested on his chest.

"You forgave me. You will to him."

That didn't calmed me down. Somehow I felt these things were different. Maybe because Damon was the first kind, the one that walked the long road of redemption. Maybe because I haven't been so intimate with Damon before he changed. Because knowing this ruined our every beautiful moment together with Stefan. All I could think about was, whenever I let him close to me, I was putting myself at the risk of him reverting back to what he truly was. A ripper. Of course he didn't wanted to be one, that's why he stopped. But could you get over your nature? I still wanted to save and help Stefan, and maybe someday I could get over the fact that he had a detour of murdering tons of people, but I wasn't so sure about whether I could love him again.

"I might. But I can't see where we can go from here," I confessed.

Damon stayed silent. It was the right choice because everything he said would be biased either by his love for me or his loyalty to his brother.

"Please stay," I asked him in a cracked voice which made clear that I wanted no dirty business, just needed him to hold me.

"Sure," he said.

I tucked up the cover and he slid next to me. My head was rested at his chest while he pulled me close. He gave me a kiss on the forehead which I noted with a sleepy moan. On my skin I could feel his lips curving up at my involuntary reaction.

"Good night Elena," I heard him whisper.

I was in the best place I could be right then. I fall asleep before I could answer.

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><p><strong>I'm a little afraid that this slow burning Delena is a little boring for you, but I think none of us would like an Elena who would jump right in the sack with Damon. Anyway, after this point I think their love would speed up a little and the plot also. Please let me know what you think in your reviews!<strong>


	6. Reaching out

**A.N.: Hello folks! This is another plotless chapter but it covers serious emotional issues. I hope you will like it! If you do, please tell me. Love, Wil**

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><p>The sun was high up in the sky and I was still lying in my bed hovering between the dream world and reality. My room was filled with light, I didn't even remember when was the last time I slept so long and felt so good about waking up.<p>

Finally I decided it was time to get up, but first things first, I stretched my whole body delightfully. That was when I discovered there was someone in my bed too, for my hand touched skin. Dismay was my initial reaction, as I became so unused of having to share my bed with somebody. I quickly turned; just to have two beautiful blue eyes stare back at me. He was propping at his elbow slightly turned towards me, his hair was messier than usual and judging by the wide-awake look in his eyes and his mischievous smile, he was watching me for a time now.

"Good morning sleepyhead," he singsonged.

It took me a few confusing moments to take in what he was doing in my bed before I remembered last night, when I asked him to stay. A dirty little thought crossed my mind, namely that I could get used to seeing him first thing in the morning. I should be feeling awful about it, but he wasn't such a bad sight at all. So instead feeling guilty, I just smiled sleepily at him.

"What time is it?"

"Almost noon."

My eyes gone wide hearing that information. I couldn't recall a time, even before supernatural came into my life, when I was resting until this late.

"I was sleeping like a baby," I murmured before I yawned again.

"I don't think so. You did more turns than a prima ballerina," he said tauntingly.

"Oh, yeah? You're snoring," I reposted lamely. "I'll get earplugs for the next time."

His eyes lost some of their naughtiness, just to burn with an entirely new intensity. They were more serious, slightly surprised but full of emotion. First I haven't even realized what generated that alteration in his behavior, only than when he asked back.

"Next time?"

I bit in my lips before I could answer anything rush to that. I wouldn't want to hurt him, not to mention that I would have to sort out whether I wish him in my bed one more time or not. Because I was certain than the next night he will spend with me, we wouldn't be just sleeping. And I found myself looking forward to that. So I had to balance carefully to let him know it was in the running, but I couldn't promise it would be this night or the following.

I didn't know how to phrase it so I just shrugged my shoulders, accompanied with an encouraging little smile. I meant it as a strong maybe. He understood it, according to his widening smile and the impishness that returned to his eyes.

"Promise me something then," he said slightly leaning towards me. It was too close for our setting and the subject but I didn't mind. It was starting to be a habit to lose my common sense when he was at this close proximity. I could just hope he wouldn't exploit it.

"It depends," I whispered.

"If that happens, do not cry. It's quite a turn-off."

I just smiled and nodded. With that covered we remained silent. We both understood the weight of what we discussed even if we haven't actually talked a lot. We acknowledged there was something between us and we were slowly inching closer to it. What kept us apart was that we didn't know it was allowed or appropriate at all, but there surely would be a breaking point when we wouldn't care anymore. I felt it coming.

"Do you want Bonnie to see me here?" he said, suddenly changing the subject. I furrowed my brows in confusion whereupon he nodded towards to door signaling that my best friend is approaching.

"No!" I mouthed quickly, not knowing how close she is. I wasn't ready to talk about Damon to Bonnie.

Damon tsked in mock disapproval, but when I shot him a glare he smiled. He looked very different when he was not sneering or grinning, just having a loose and playful smile on, like he had now. I never really had a chance to see him smiling without a purpose, so it was a pleasant surprise. Any other time it must have been contagious but I was started to freak out Bonnie would walk in any minute now.

I was checking the door and when I looked back he was gone. The window was open, must have made his exit there. I barely had time to register that before Bonnie marched in after two haste knocks on my door.

"Good, you're up."

Nervous was not a good enough word to describe her. She jumped on my bed almost exactly to the same spot which Damon left just a few seconds ago. For a second I thought she could tell someone was in there before her, but she was way too jittery to notice that.

"I brought everything," she announced after calming herself down with a shaky sigh.

"For what?" I asked, feeling that I missed something.

"For the séance," she enlightened me.

Oh.

"Oh!" I managed to stammer.

That little tryst with Damon this morning completely kicked me off the track. I had to get myself together. A good coffee was a must. I rubbed my forehead trying to come back on board.

"Wait," something occurred to me. "Are we going to do this now?"

I pointed outside the window where the midday sun was shining dazzlingly. It seemed an unusual hour for calling forth ghosts. Although what is unusual about my life these day? The really weird was, that throwing a séance itself didn't felt odd at all. Our lives really were screwed.

"The dead doesn't care about the time," Bonnie closed the chat. "Go get Jeremy, I'll set everything up."

"I'm on it."

Right after the coffee.

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><p>I was headed to Jeremy's room with two steaming cups of coffee. If he was just as anxious as Bonnie he was going to need something to sooth his nerves. After all he was the key person in this ceremony. Bonnie said she was not sure she could do more than calling Elijah's spirit after losing so much of her power. Making him visible required a lot more than she had right now. But since we had Jeremy here, who could see him if he came, nothing more was needed. Except Jeremy's presence and employment. And that was what disturbed me. He was very confused and frightened after Elijah's appearance I didn't want to involve him more than necessary.<p>

I slowly pushed in his door just to find him lying on his bed with his earphones on, drumming the beat on his tucked knees. He didn't look nervous a bit.

The delicious smell of the coffee must have hit him, because he turned his head towards me.

"I came bearing coffee," I started, lifting the mugs as he took off the earpieces.

"No, you came to check if I was ok," he stated, smiling, while taking one of the cups.

"And are you?" I asked surprised by his good mood.

"Sure. I'm cool," he mumbled heartily between two sips.

My whole face must have showed the shock I felt at his mirth because he looked at me and laughed.

"Chill, Elena. It's all right. Actually I'm rather excited."

That astonished me a little more. We were all in stress worrying about Jeremy's part in this whole ordeal and here he was joyous as never before. What was happening?

He climbed up from his bed so he was now nearly in eye level with me. His eyes really reflected exhilaration.

"I've been thinking," he started to explain his state to me. "These witches gave me the ability to see the dead and then bang! I see Elijah. Don't you think it stand us in good stead too much to be random?"

I haven't even thought about it before but now that he mentioned it, it was true we rarely had that kind of luck. Actually it was really strange how Jeremy's new talent came in handy.

"I think they gave it to me in order to help them. You know, restoring the balance and stuff," he continued still thrilled. It was nice to see Jeremy like that. Sometimes we really left him out of things but only to protect him. Now he felt like he had a chance to be a valuable member of the team. Even if I wasn't exactly persuaded that he was right about his theory, I wouldn't be the one to crop his feathers. It was nice to see him so strong-willed and enthusiastic.

"Come on John Edward," I taunted him with a smile. "Time to cross over."

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><p><strong>All right, the next chapter will be a little more action-packed. I hope you fancy that too!<strong>


	7. Deliberating

_**A.N.: Hello people! I know I promised an action-packed chapter but I got sidetracked. I listened to Alanis Morissette's Uninvited and a great (at least I hope it is) Damon/Elena moment popped into my head. I think that song strangely fits them. Although I'm not familiar with the term 'unfortunate slight'- English is not my native language. If anyone can enlighten me I would be grateful… Anyway, listen to it if you can, it's great. I chose the last line as the motto of this chapter.**_

_**Ok, enough with the rambling! Read it! Oh and review please! I love reviews, they are the reason I keep on writing. And I love everyone who's writing a review. And can't seem to stop rambling, I'm excited… Ok, I will stop now.**_

_**One last thing, I changed the rating to M, just in case. Who knows what will happen next…**_

_**Love,Wil**_

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><p>'<em><strong>I don't think you unworthy, I need a moment to deliberate.'<strong>_

_Alanis Morissette - Uninvited_

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><p>„Are you sure you're doing this right," asked Damon impatiently.<p>

The midday turned into late afternoon, than into evening and Elijah still haven't made an appearance. Exhaustion laid us down, especially Bonnie, who had to concentrate during the whole time.

She shot him a glare out of witch pride, but when she turned to me her eyes reflected the opposite. _'Am I?'_ This was surely not helping her confidence to return.

"Let's take a break," I suggested and a harmonious murmur was the answer to that.

Everyone vanished into different directions. Bonnie claimed she needed some air and hurried out the front door, Jeremy following her. Damon marched out of the room fuming in frustration. Alaric just stood there absently for a minute then he left too. I understood their disappointment. I felt just the same. We should be out by now, searching for Elijah and the others. There was no time to waste. With every day we stood idle, Stefan was sinking deeper into god knows what.

I slumped into the sofa, thinking hard about a new plan if this would run upon the rocks, but nothing came into mind. We could go back to our previous one, just going there to find the last human relative alone, but that was mere suicide, we all know that. There had to be another way.

Caroline lumped down next to me. We were both staring into thin air, deep into our thoughts, when abruptly she asked the most unforeseen question.

"So what's up with you and Damon?"

"What? Nothing!" I protested, but I realized I sounded overly defensive. Never a good strategy.

"Why do you think there's anything?" I asked truly curious, because I was trying to keep my distance from him all day. I was not eager to let my friends in on the recent developments between us. I thought nobody noticed anything. I, on the other hand, had noticed that my intentions to cover ourselves irritated Damon. His good mood from this morning vanished with every little flirtatious attempts I ignored. One time I basically jumped from his hand when he was leading me through the arch of the living room. I hurt him with that, I knew that.

Caroline tapped the top of her nose with her forefinger as an answer, and when I realized what she meant I blushed immediately. She could smell him on me. Blast, I should have taken a shower. Caroline looked a little affronted and I could totally understand. Stefan was her friend too.

"Caroline, believe me that was nothing. He just stayed there to comfort me… I cried, and…" I rambled but I felt really bad about it. I didn't know what to say or how to say it. Denying that we had something with Damon was a betrayal of him. Admitting it would be cheating on Stefan. In case if we still dated. I wasn't sure that going on a murderous spree didn't qualify as break-up. I was utterly confused.

"Caroline, what should I do?" I begged for guidance on the verge of tears.

Caroline quickly switched back to being my friend rather than Stefan's, because she scooted closer and hugged me and whispered to my ear.

"Been there, done that. Believe me, I know how you feel. I can't tell you who to choose, but I want you to know that whatever you do, I will be on your side. And Bonnie too. Just promise me saving Stefan will be top priority, no matter what. You owe this to him."

I nodded as I unfolded myself from her embrace. Hearing that my friends would support my any decision was taking weights off of my shoulders.

I heard the front door open and I quickly wiped away my tears not wanting Jeremy to see I cried. But he had grater problems than my wining.

Bonnie could barely walk as he clung onto her and his every breath was a rattle. I jumped up from the sofa immediately, involuntarily shouting Damon's name for help.

He was there in a second, taking Jeremy under his arms.

"What happened?" he demanded. I looked at Bonnie for explanation but she just shook her head in panic.

"I..I don't know. We were talking than he went blank for a minute and then started gasping."

Damon put Jeremy down on the sofa when we all gathered around him helplessly. I held his hand, because I didn't know what else I could do. Then his fast and uneven breathing was slowly becoming normal again hence my heart was beating a little slower too.

"Jer, are you all right?" I asked distressed.

"I will be if you would stop squeezing my hand," he told me a little hoarsely.

I smiled in relief and eased my hold on his hand but didn't let it go. He sat up, looking a bit dizzy but otherwise all right.

"Elijah's here," he announced when he straightened up. I tried to follow his gaze to guess where the ghost stood but his eyes weren't focused on anything, just stared into the distance.

"Where?" I asked finally.

He put one hand to his chest.

"In here."

I looked bewildered at Bonnie hoping she would know anything about it, but she looked just as puzzled as I was. As far as we know when someone was taking over another person's body he would became inferior to the invader and wouldn't be himself. Although Jeremy was talking about Elijah in his body like he was conscious.

"Did he possess you?" Bonnie put the question to Jeremy.

"No, I don't think so. I feel like myself. But I feel strange things," he said unsure.

I couldn't even imagine what it could be a stranger feeling than having a ghost of an original vampire inside your body, but Jeremy continued.

"I hear muffled footsteps, like many people were walking above me. There's a loud ringing noise. And I smell dust. Ancient dust. I think that's what he feels."

"Again with the ambiguous clues. Why can't he give us coordinates?" fumed Damon, but I put him to silence with a wave of my hand. Something was scratching the back of my head, an idea forming slowly. Footsteps, ring, dust. Footsteps, ring, dust. What else could it be? I searched Alaric's eyes for confirmation and I saw he came into the same conclusion.

"The Historical Museum" he said it out loud for me.

I nodded. That must be it. I jumped up in excitement.

"Let's go!"

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><p>It was almost nine when we were ready to go. It was perfect timing, because the museum closed at six, nobody, except Barney, the sixty-something guard was expected to be there. Probably wouldn't be a problem for our vamps. We decided against bringing weapons, partly to show our good intentions, partly because they were just pieces of wooden junk against the Originals. Bonnie and Jeremy went ahead with Alaric, Caroline took her own car. That left me with Damon alone. I kind of arranged it like that; I wanted a word with him.<p>

Everybody got into their respective cars and we were headed to the Museum. Now that we were getting close to have Stefan back I felt both excitement and fear at the same time. I was happy that we would be able to pull Stefan out of the mess he got himself into, but I also feared what kind of person I would get back. And I also feared that this thing we had with Damon would be over after Stefan returns, because I know it would change things. And I didn't want it over. I wanted it to begin.

I didn't even realize I was watching him the whole time during my little train of thought. God, he looked good. Of course I noticed that before, but since I haven't considered him as possible love interest I just admired his beauty. As they say, just because you're on a diet doesn't mean you can't look at the menu. But know he was probing my diet seriously. He was a big fat piece of cake.

I thought he didn't noticed my glance, because he didn't even looked my way, but turned out he did.

"What?" he asked all of a sudden with eyes still on the road.

"Caroline knows about us," I said the first thing that came into my mind to cover my real thoughts that crossed my mind while staring at him.

"There's nothing to know about, Elena," he said huffily.

I figured he would be angry with me. If he would have behaved like that after an intimate moment we shared just that morning I would have been furious too. I could understand he felt deluded. That was why I insisted this ride with him; I wanted to get things straight and make things clear.

"She knows that I'm in love with you," I said simply.

The car stopped with a creak as he pushed the break suddenly. He was still refusing to look at me. His eyes gone white at the steering wheel, I was afraid he would smash it. Clearly he wasn't reacting to it the way I imagined.

"There's a _'but'_ isn't it?" he asked on a tone what was destined to be emotionless but I noticed a little crack in it, what probably no one else would.

"There is," I admitted, but before I could continue to explain it he jumped out from the car, leaving me in it in the middle of the road.

"You drive, I'll walk," he called back as he disappeared into the forest next to the road. I was momentarily stunned at his exit but the next second I climbed through the driver's seat, smashing the door behind me and marched into the woods after him.

"Damon!" I yelled after him, but he didn't stop.

"Damon, would you stop acting like a pouting little girl?" I shouted just a few steps behind him.

That halted him and he already turned around before I could register, so I basically bumped into him. That gave me the opportunity to see those flaring eyes in the close-up.

"And why wouldn't I act like that? I don't know, maybe because you invite me to your bed one minute and ban to touch you the second. Guess what, your evil twin has already played that piece. It's getting a bit boring," he hissed right in front of my face.

"I'm not Katherine," I stormed at the comparison. "That's what I was trying to tell you."

I took in a deep sigh to calm myself down because I didn't want to tell everything to him rampaging.

"There's a mayor difference between us. I can decide. And I have already decided."

At this point he turned his face like he was expecting a slap, but I needed to see his eyes while I was confessing, so I cupped his face with my palms and gently turned it back.

"I want to be with you, Damon, "I said softly. The light that returned to his eyes was the single most beautiful thing I have ever seen. All the love he felt was right there finally unhooded. Maybe this was the first time he wasn't holding himself back or put on a mask. He just let it all out, let it show, put everything he had in my hands, and I wasn't going to crush it. In fact I planned to cherish it for the rest of my life.

"The _'but'_ is that I want it to be clean. I wouldn't wish to start it with cheating on Stefan and I know you feel the same. Let me close that first, "I explained the reason of my restrain while stroking his face, and he nodded in agreement.

For moments we just stood there, his face in my hands, that love in his eyes, his lips in my sight; and it felt harder every passing second to live up to the rules I set up myself. Fortunately he saved me from myself because he took my hands, removed them from his face and lowered them, but not without placing a kiss on both.

I thanked him with a sigh. What a twist was, that the crazy impulsive vampire had more command over himself than me.

"So you're saying that you're basically my girlfriend, but I can't touch you," he perorated with a devilish smile. I was glad his wickedness returned. I liked him best that way.

"Something like that," I said, accompanied with an apologetic little smile.

"You really are trying a man's self-control, you know," he murmured seductively.

"I'm trying mine also. I'm looking forward to that next night just as much as you do," I admitted shyly.

"Really," he asked with raised eyebrows. "I'm sorry I must test this."

He pushed me gently by my hands until my back reached a tree. He basically pinned me to it, as our bodies touched from head to toe. My left leg was between his slightly spread tights. Well, I could feel clearly how much he waited for that night. All of my muscles tensed in my body reacting to this revelation, my skin was burning hot. He swept back my hair falling on my neck, never breaking eye contact. When he was leaning on my neck I trembled. I could feel his hot breath just under my ears. How did he know it's a sensitive spot for me? His lips hovered just micro inches above my skin never actually touching it. My arousal was evident; I couldn't deny it even if I had wanted to. The pounding of my heart and the heat spreading through my whole body would surely sell me out. He was essentially torturing me with the promise of a kiss. I couldn't help but let out an impatient moan. That put a pleased smile on his face, I felt his mouth curving.

"I think we're even," he whispered into my ear, barely touching my earlobe with his lips.

Yes, we were.

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><p><strong>I promise again, something would actually happen to move on with the plot in the next chapter. Scout's honor! <strong>


	8. Searching

**A.N.: Warning, this is not a fluffy chapter, but we have to move on with the plot too. I hope you like a little action too. I'm not really sure about this part, I like to write emotional scenes the best but I don't like stories with just fluff. What do you think? Should I push this plot thing? Write me in your reviews, please! **

**Love, Wil**

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><p>„Was that really necessary?" claimed Bonnie - the voice of nature and balance- angrily, as she stood next to the limp body of Barney Thomas. "You could have just compel him!"<p>

"He was already compelled!" barked Damon as he searched the clothes of the old man for keys or a pass card. "He will live."

Finally he found a shiny card in the back pocket of the guard's uniform. He stood up looking around aimlessly. Here we were at the Museum, which held the historical heritage of our town. And a bunch of thousand years old vampires. We just didn't know where exactly. The building itself wasn't that big, but I guessed that we wouldn't find the bodies in the showrooms.

"Where to?" Damon asked Jeremy.

Jeremy looked around too, then closed his eyes trying to remember the feelings. I could see the concentration on his face.

"I hear the footsteps from above me, so I guess… basement?" he finished the sentence as a question.

Communicating with Elijah was a little difficult. Bonnie said it was maybe because he was withheld by a spell or something, but he couldn't talk to Jeremy directly, just transferring feeling towards him. It was a bit like playing Charades.

"There's a storage place down there," announced Caroline and was already headed to the other side of the room we were currently in. "I was there with Mrs. Lockwood once."

We arrived to a door which had a 'Staff only' sign on it. Damon tapped the card to the control panel next to the handle and it clicked open. A stairway beckoned us to go under. Damon was the first to advance down, as we didn't know what to expect there. Our other vampire, Caroline covered our backs. But there was no need for these precautions, because the storage room was empty. Of people there is, because otherwise it was stuffed. The place was huge. All kinds of boxes were packed in steel shelves and wooden caskets were lined up alongside the walls. There were at least a thousand places to hide bodies.

"Are they here?" turned Damon to Jeremy again, looking frustrated about the many possibilities as well.

Jeremy closed his eyes again, then after a moment of silent concentration he reached his hand out, like he was trying to touch something.

"Yes, he's here, but I don't think that's a box," he murmured absently, like he was just talking to himself. He put his fingers together as you do when you test a fabric. "It's weird. It's cushy and soft. Maybe silk or something like…"

"It's a coffin," Damon busted in. Jeremy's eyes sprung open and he involuntarily wiped his hand in his jeans trying to get rid of the mental touch.

I wasn't even trying to decipher how Damon knew what it's like to lie in a coffin. Sometimes I forgot he was not a mere man.

"Ok, we'll split up!"Alaric instructed us and sent us towards distinct rows.

I had the first one, facing the entry. Shelves were on my right and huge wooden caskets on my left. It seemed easier to start with the brackets because the boxes along the wall were huge enough themselves to hid a coffin. They were needed to be opened. But since none of us found a coffin or something big enough to hide a coffin in it, I turned towards the cabinets. I was going to need a chisel, so I get back to find one. That was when I spotted something weird. There were scratches on the floor before a big batch of smaller boxes. They were way to tiny for our criteria but it felt suspicious that they seemed to be moved recently, especially that the label on them said they were boxed ages ago and held a bunch of worthless junk. I took a few steps back to have a better look at the pile when something caught my eye. A corner of what seemed to be like a wooden panel stick out behind the stack. The rest of the wall was grey and cemented so it stood out. Particularly because someone tried to hide it.

"Hey, I think I found something," I hollered to gather everyone around. When they arrived, looking inquiringly at me, I pointed at the spot where the wooden panel could be seen.

"What's that?" asked Bonnie when she failed to identify my discovery.

"I think it's a door," I shared my theory.

Excitement rushed through us as we all recognized the importance of this. That must be the hiding place.

"Let's take a look. Blondie help me out here," waved Damon for Caroline to assist him. I watched in awe as they packed the large caskets aside like they were Lego bricks. With every disappearing level it became clearer that my premise was right. It really was a double door, closed with an electric lock which had a keyboard attached to it. A password? Nobody said anything about a password. That was a surprise and a let-down. Although I didn't know what I was thinking. Clearly it couldn't be that easy to find what Klaus was trying to hide, even if we received tremendous help from the other side.

"We need a password," I shared my frustration with Damon.

"And why are you looking at me like I'm Robert Langdon? Ask the boy-who-lived."

Right, Jeremy. I totally forgot he was our spirit guide now.

"Family," he gabbled before I had the chance to ask him.

It made sense, so I stepped to the panel and typed in the word. Nothing happened, except a red light that appeared on the lock.

"But that's it, I'm sure," he objected when I looked at him for confirmation. He jostled me out of the way to try it himself. Like I couldn't type. Of course nothing happened for him either.

"All right, time for brute force," declared Damon and punched one of the wings of the door before Bonnie could stop him. He should have listened to her shouting no, because the door wasn't even cracked, unlike his fist.

"Son of a bitch!"

I immediately jumped to him, taking his injured hand in mine. His fingers was limp, his knuckles bloody. He frowned in pain but I already felt the bones moving back into place and his skin was healing also. One last crack, one last moan and he were good as new. I entwined my fingers with his and looked back into his face. He glanced at our hand together than momentarily at our friends surrounding us. I knew what he was asking with that. _Is that allowed?_ I nodded, I was not afraid to show my affection towards him anymore. But that was not the time for heartfelt moments, so I turned towards Bonnie letting his hand in the process.

"Let me guess. There's a spell."

Bonnie must have seen that little silent conversation between us because she still stared at my hand for seconds. No wonder. No one could have missed the look he was giving to me. It was full of love and gratefulness for not ignoring him in front of my friends anymore. She shook his head like she was trying to come out of a hallucination. I knew sorting things out with her would be more difficult than with Caroline. Fortunately she was feeling the weight of our situation and didn't mention anything.

"That what was I was trying to say. Didn't you hear yelling me 'Nooooo'?"

I was afraid what Damon would answer to this question so just to preclude an argument I held up my both hands to shut them up.

"The door is protected with a password and a spell?"

"No," Bonnie shook her head."The password protects the spell."

I looked at her confused. I never heard of such a thing. It sounded to be a very unlikely fusion.

"I thought there was supposed to be an item that seals the spell."

"Yes, but you need a witch to unbind it. This way anyone can lift the spell and reset it," said Bonnie. I thought she found it fascinating. I might too if it wouldn't separate us from our goal.

"Anyone with a password," sighed Alaric.

Everyone fall silent for a moment. There has to be a way to get into this room. We came here, found the place. We were standing in the door for crying out loud. And we had no idea what to do.

Well, we had no idea, but it seemed Bonnie had. I could basically saw that little light-bulb flashing above her head as I looked at her.

"Elijah is talking inside of Jeremy, right? He isn't using words just feeling and impressions," she started to explain her idea with passion. "Jeremy is hearing 'family' in English because he speaks English. But what if it's 'family', but in other language?"

I looked around everyone how they welcomed the idea and they reacted the way I did. Excitement hit us again.

"Ok, but what language? There are quite a few possibilities," distressed us Caroline with the truth. Also we had a prime factor.

"Elijah said they are originated from Eastern-Europe. I think that's a start," I said.

"We are going to need a map and a dictionary," announced Alaric with a sigh.

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><p>Alaric and Jeremy left to get my brothers laptop we needed for breaking the code. Bonnie and Caroline went to check on the guard as we heard loud grunting from upstairs. I sat on a shelf swinging my legs, opposite to the door which was still very much closed, despite the various attempts of Damon to open it.<p>

"How do you even know all these languages?" I asked him when he typed in family in Bulgarian too.

He threw his hands up in irritation, kicked the door a few times then turned and sat down beside me on the shelf.

"I haven't spent all this one and a half century with getting drunk and eating sorority girls," he said a little bitterly. "You bound to learn a thing or two in so much time."

He was saying that last thing a little ambiguously, under his lashes, but it didn't have the effect it used to. It was like some other man was trying to act like Damon. Getting caught of having feelings he turned his eyes after that. But he couldn't fool me anymore. We both had our hands beside us, holding on to the edge of the shelf. His right hand and my left touched, and it felt like we were connected, like we had one nervous system and bloodstream. I was sensing his every thought and feeling. Right now he was very much concerned about his brother.

"We will find him," I reassured him placing my hand on his.

"That's my job telling you all will be ok," he said sadly.

"He's your brother. You have every right to be worried too," I told him quietly. He looked a little broken. It turned out that Damon was very emotional. He said that he was different in 1864, but I couldn't imagine another Damon than the strong and snarky one I already knew. He would never let me see him this exposed before. I always knew he had this all in him, but he never showed it. It was sad to think he had all these troubling feelings and never had anybody to talk it out. It was a nice change that he let me in finally.

"Do I get to be upset when I'm snatching his girlfriend?" he asked quietly while lifting our entwined hands a little. I could see his dilemma. It was a very delicate situation, I understand. He was torn between his loyalty to his brother who always stood up for him even when he didn't deserve it and his love for me.

"Yes, you do. You can't help how you feel. And there's no snatching," I tried to lighten the mood with a little smile. "That's my decision."

After a responding smile he let go of my hand just to wrap me in a one arm embrace and pull me closer. He pressed a quick little kiss on my temple before I rested my head on his shoulder.

"We're Jerry Springer material that's for sure," he mumbled, his snarky tone returning. "My girl busted out with my vampire brother."

I couldn't help but laugh at the grievous veracity of this title. Although I don't think anyone else would be fit to be part of that show.

We stayed like that until Bonnie and Caroline returned with the boys. They were overly wound up discussing something in high voice. I reluctantly pulled away from Damon to find out what the fuss was about.

"Try it now," Bonnie directed Jeremy to the panel. He typed in something and the red light was taken over with green. With a slight fizzling noise and a click the door was open. I jumped down from my spot on the ledge and looked at the span of opening.

"What was it?" I asked my brother.

"Család," he said what I assumed was the code. "We didn't know where they were from, but I looked up their direct descendants' family name and turned out they were a noble family of a Hungarian origin," sputtered Jeremy proudly. "It seems fairy tales really have their roots in history because they were settled in Transylvania, which was part of Hungary then."

"Oh, how lame is that," groaned Damon rolling his eyes but he also came closer for a peek. "Well I guess we are in the right place," he said, then flung the wings of the door open, revealing a little room with eight shiny coffins inside. "Unless someone else hid a complete family here."

Turned out that everybody felt it hard to believe that we actually found as much them as I did, because we all stood there stunned for a moment before Alaric broke the silence.

"I suppose we have to open them if we want Elijah," he said but haven't made a move to do so. It was Damon who came to himself first and stepped inside the alcove, ripped off the stripe securing the coffin and lifted the lid.

"Not him," he announced. I walked closer and saw a young woman lying there with a dagger in her heart. She wore clothes from the turn of the century. Elijah said Klaus hunted down his family one by one; she must have been killed then. Funny, how I found her kind of familiar.

But I didn't have the time to contemplate on that because Alaric already unlocked an older man's coffin as well, who I guessed as their father. Next we found Elijah's resting place.

"Let's move it outside," told Damon to Alaric and Caroline. They pulled the coffin to the corridor and turned it sheer to the door. Damon broke off the upper lid of the coffin and kneeled beside it to shield the sight of the room from Elijah. Caroline occupied a similar position on the opposite side looking for Damon for instructions.

"Don't let him get up," he gave the orders. "Ric, pull that dagger, but don't take it far."

Alaric opened the lower lid also and climbed inside the casket, and knelt over the dead vampire, putting his hand on the grip of the dagger. He signaled he was ready and so did Caroline, although with little less confidence. On Damon's nod he pulled out the weapon with a twitch then positioned it back over his heart. The vampires on both sides held down the still unmoving Elijah. A few long moments passed before he came back to life with a loud intake of breath.

"Easy, pal. One more move and my buddy here will put that thing back right where it belongs. He's good at that," said Damon to the still gasping Elijah, referring to the one time when Ric had actually did that. "Boy, you get staked a lot."

He and Ric shared a grin, consolidating their predomination in the situation. Elijah looked around to size-up the setting. When he looked at me I folded my arms before me to look slightly more intimidating. I didn't think it helped a lot. Finally his eyes settled at Jeremy but he was talking to Damon.

"What do you want?"

"You screwed us over the last time but we are willing to give our relationship another chance if you will be a good boy now. Or else you stay a dead boy," Damon phrased our conditions in a Damon kind of way.

But you couldn't scare off Elijah, one of the oldest of vampires with mere talk. He smiled so pleasantly as ever.

"I did what I did out of loyalty for my loved ones. I believe you of all people would understand that, "he was talking to Damon directly now, looking into his eyes.

"I also believe that you made all this frantic efforts to find me because you're in sore need of my assistance. Ergo, you're in no position to lay down conditions to my services." Elijah said with an air of assured dominance and it didn't left his face, not even seeing Damon's devilish grin.

"That's where you're wrong," he said then slid a few spans to the side and let Elijah up a few inches to grant him a good look at his surroundings.

The arrogance vanished from Elijah's face in a split second. The sight of the coffins that held his family changed his attitude in an instant. He looked unbelievingly at the caskets, clearly he had no idea he was laying here with all his relatives. I swear I could even see tears starting to form in his eyes.

Damon leaned closer, but let him watch the coffins while he repeated our terms.

"You will be a good puppy, you will bark, beg, crawl and roll over when we ask, and I won't sink you and all your siblings into the ocean. You get me?"

Elijah stared at the coffins for a few more minutes then moved his gaze to Damon.

"I will do whatever you want," he said most earnestly. All his vengefulness towards his brother and all the joy for finding his family were reflected on his face. It made me believe he would be our ally. Damon was convinced too. He smiled contentedly.

"Now we're talking."

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><p><strong>Yay, Elijah's back. I hope he will be back in the show as well. Will September ever come? <strong>


	9. Riding

**A.N.: Welcome back! As I read back this chapter it reminded me of a rollercoaster ride. There are plenty of lows and ups. And everything not what it seems. It's not on purpose, it's just came out like this. I hope you enjoy the ride!**

**Love, Wil**

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><p>I was still kinda awed at how could someone look as neat as a new pin just a few minutes after reviving from long weeks of death, but Elijah emerged from his coffin with so much grace and poise that I felt very scruffy. He swept off some non-existent dust from his jacket then stepped out of his resting place.<p>

"Would you be so kind to enlighten me about the situation?" he asked looking at all of us.

I thought it was my duty to talk to him, so I tried to summarize what happened during his death.

"Klaus took Stefan in exchange of the cure for Damon's werewolf bite. We found a journal with your family tree, and we figured he plans to gather all his vampire relatives around him. We don't know how many he managed to recruit apart from Stefan, but they are not exactly hiding. They…" my voice shook there, I thought I was ready to say it, but it turned out I was not.

"…need to be stopped," Elijah finished my sentence in perfect understanding.

"I don't care about your brother, but I want mine back," barged in Damon to clear the situation.

"You have to know that there's a possibility…" Elijah started to explain what we all dread, that we won't get Stefan back like he left.

"Just anyhow," Damon cut in again.

"Of course," said Elijah with a pleasant smile, like we were talking about the weather.

"Is there a way without my help?" asked Bonnie standing from one foot to another. I knew she was nervous about her powers and if there was another chance for saving Stefan she might want to be out of it as a witch.

"Now, there is," assured us enigmatically, Elijah as he showed over the rest of his family.

"Great, let's wake them," said Damon clasping his hand together to hurry us. "Who comes first?"

Elijah flashed me an unfathomable grin then turned back to Damon.

"We shall start with my mother. I would like to introduce her to Elena."

I found it strange that he felt the need to present me to his mother, but I didn't really care which deadly vampire we rise first, so it was fine by me. Elijah searched the coffins opening them one by one. The last was the winner. As he unlocked it I saw the love towards his mother in his eyes. He reached in to stroke her face; at least I guessed that what he was doing, because I couldn't see inside the coffin. With one last tender look he pulled a silver dagger out of her heart. After one moment of deafening silence there was a loud gasp, and she was awake.

Elijah started to talk to her in their native language in a soothing manner. The woman' breathing became even soon and she emerged from her bed. First I saw her hands on the side of the casket. She had delicate hands just like me. Then she lifted herself up more with the aid of his son and my breath stuck inside my lungs. She climbed out from the coffin and I still couldn't breathe.

"Holy crap," I heard Damon swear behind me.

Elijah's mother, the oldest vampire ever, was standing right before me. And she was looking just like me, or rather what I would be looking like thirty years from now.

Holy crap, indeed.

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><p>"That was creepy if you ask me," mumbled Damon as we sunk into our respective armchair in the living room of the boarding house, he held a glass of scotch, I had a mug of hot tea.<p>

Resigning the papers of the house was not a bad idea after all, now I could kept the Originals outside. Fortunately they hadn't insisted to stay at our place this night. The last night before we would be on the road to L.A., finding the human boy and waiting for Klaus and Stefan to show themselves.

I guessed that Damon was referring to meeting Julianna, the one woman from whom this all mess is originated. She was the one who gave birth to Klaus, the one and only hybrid, and she was my genetic counterpart. Her blood started a thousand years old war, her blood sealed the curse on her own son and my blood, which was actually the same thing, lifted the curse. The funny thing was that actually Damon and Stefan and I are from the same bloodline even if we were not blood relatives. I was the exact copy of their ancestor. If anything, that was creepy.

"You know Granny looks hot even now. It's glad to know that if you decide against being a vampire for good, you will still be looking this good ever," he raised his glass at me, but somehow his somewhat of a compliment didn't cheered me up. In fact it depressed me.

He saw that I was not in a good enough mood for Damon humor, so the perky grin left his face and he became serious too. He put his scotch down and came to kneel before my chair. He didn't say a word, just waited for me to pour my heart.

"Is this the purpose of my life? Being the umpteenth magical clone to some 10th century woman?" I said with disappointment in my voice. I knew Katherine was also my identical copy, but she was a copy as well. Nothing more and nothing less than me. But meeting with the original one, who actually born this way and not by magic, was humiliating. It made my life redundant.

Damon got the tea away from me, to be able to hold my hands.

"Maybe this is why you were born, but that's not why you live," he whispered looking up at me. "That's just DNA. You have nothing more in common. You live differently because you have chosen differently, and you're free from them now. You make your purpose of your life whatever you want. You live for your friends, for your brother. I hope you live for me too."

Who would have guessed just a few months ago that Damon would ever be able to hush my surging soul? That he could pull me out of an identity crisis with a few whispered words. What were the odds that I would look into his love-filled eyes and I would be feeling the exact same thing. I know I would have laughed anyone in the face who would predict that. And here I was, my heart was full of emotions and gratitude for his words, and the need to be closer to him. But I knew I can't. Our first time deserved to be free of bad feelings and regret.

"You are amazing, you know that," I said to him, feeling lighter by tons. I even cracked a smile.

"Sure I do," he answered with a wink.

There, how could you resist him?

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><p>Finally I was able to get a shower after this long day. I needed that badly. When I climbed out, wrapping a towel around myself, I felt like a new person. An entirely new one as a matter of fact, because I was not feeling myself. I couldn't phrase what was different, but it was odd. I haven't looked different as I checked myself in the mirror while combing my hair.<p>

Suddenly the feeling that I was being watched rushed through me. I glanced back to my room and I saw Damon standing in the doorway of the bathroom, leaning on it slightly with his shoulder and watching me intently. I felt like a bunny before a hound under his predatory look. I grabbed my towel and tightened it on me, but I knew it was worthless. His hungry eyes told me there's no turning back from here. It's decided.

He stalked me like a panther. He stepped behind my back and his fingers traced my shoulders then my back where it was nude from the towel. Our eyes met for a second in the mirror, but he was not asking for permission, I already granted him that by not moving or sending him away.

After some agonizingly slow caresses on my back and my forearm he turned me around gently. His eyes was filled with lust, they gave away just how much he wanted me. I melted at that thought and my legs gone weak. Lucky he grabbed me by my butt and lifted me up on top of the washstand. I wrapped my legs around him to pull him closer to me, but there was no closer than we were already were. He cupped my face with both of his hands and I thought he was going to kiss me, but he turned my head a little, to place soft little kisses on my cheeks, on my jaw line and finally on my neck. I could feel his teeth on the delicate skin there. Or maybe they were fangs, I didn't care. I knew he was in control of his vampire side, I trusted him not to hurt me.

He continued to give feather light kisses on my shoulder and collarbones. When he reached my breastbone I arched my back in pleasure. The towel on my chest got loose by my motion. I moved my hand to catch it by reflex, but he stopped me by grabbing my wrist and pushing it back to the counter. The soft fabric unfolded itself and slid down from my breast, then finally pooled in my lap, leaving me naked before him from waist up. That circumstantiality did not slipped his notice as he left his trail of kisses, leaned back a little to have a full view of my nude upper body. I guessed he liked what he saw because he looked back into my face with such fire in his eyes I had never seen before.

I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to have him. Right then. I pulled his face closer staring at his beautiful lips when I heard him saying "Ah-ah-ah-ah" in a mock scolding manner.

It confused me very much I petrified at the spot. And it wasn't just a fact that he stopped me, but the thing that his mouth didn't move when he said that. I actually heard his voice inside my head. It was weird, I didn't know he was able to crawl inside my head when I was awake. Unless I was not.

Oh, no he didn't!

The Damon facing me nodded devilishly.

Oh, no, he did!

"Damon!" I shouted very much awake now.

The real life Damon was laying in my bed comfortably, resting his head on the footboard. And he was grinning fiendishly in real life too.

I pulled the covers before me which amused him even more. It really was pointless as I was fully clothed in my PJ's now, and he saw everything he wanted to saw in my dream.

"That's cheating you know!" I reproached, my cheeks burned with fever and wrath.

"No," he protested with pointing his index finger up. Evidently he came prepared for this question. "It's a loophole. I haven't touched you. I'm obeying all your rules."

"Now I'm making a rule against dream invasion," I said firmly but my anger somehow slipped away and a smile was trying to surface. I wasn't going to encourage him with that so I threw a pillow his way.

"Get out!" I shouted but I felt my playful tone was selling me out.

"You're ruining all my fun," he pouted and climbed up from my bed. "Actually I came to tell you there's a bunch of vampires at the door waiting for you to let them in. But then I saw an opening…"

No he was crashing my fun. My mood turned from lighthearted to gloomy in the span of one second.

"In case reality depresses you, I'm always at your service," he said courteously as he backed out from my room.

In fact it very much saddened me at the moment. I plummeted back onto my bed. Dream world seemed a much better place right now.

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><p><strong>BAZINGA! You can rag me for the scam in your reviews. But please don't, I'm very sensitive… <strong>


	10. Knowing

**A.N.: Hello everybody! Sorry for not updating lately, but I had to finish my original story for a writing contest. If they like it, it might come out in e-book. Wish me luck!  
>Anyway, in this chapter we are moving on with the plot, but I couldn't finish this without some sweeeet Delena stuff. Enjoy, and please leave reviews!<strong>

**Love, Wil**

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><p>I couldn't imagine any weirder scene that the one we had at our very own living room. It was basically a cocktail party for deadly beasts. Elijah, his parents, his three brothers and two sisters were all gathered in the boarding house. Lucky, that they changed their names throughout the centuries, because I had difficulty pronouncing those Hungarian words. The girl, whose coffin we first opened was the littlest in the family. Her name was Erzsébet, but she asked me to call her Elizabeth. Alive and in close-up she had resembled very much her mother, consequently she looked a lot like me too. No wonder I found her familiar at first sight. It should have been strange to meet her, but her good manner and charm made me forget my uneasiness.<p>

Actually they all were really charming. Elijah was the oldest of the men; his younger brothers were named Attila, Robert and Ferenc. Elizabeth had an older sister, Marianna, who took after his father very much. The father, Charles - originally Károly- , was a little out of the line, because he was the quietest of them all. It was hard to imagine he slaughtered an entire family for vengeance. He looked like a gentleman. Hence their modern clothes I still felt like I was in a ball arranged by a nobleman.

Well, the one quasi master of this house was the one who didn't looked like a gentlemen. He strolled the room like he was fed up with this whole gathering. I could understand that. We should be out on the road by now, but the family seemingly was not in a hurry. Living for a thousand years must do this to you. A couple of hours didn't really count. I was thinking about the most polite ways to tell them to move their asses when finally Elijah stepped next to me accompanied with Damon.

"We can leave now. I arranged a bus," he announced.

A bus? A bus? We are really going to go on a deadly mission with a bus? How uncool was that? From the corner of my eye I saw Damon opening his mouth for interposing his veto for Elijah's choice of vehicle, but he stopped him.

"I think we should stick together. Do you have an objection other then it's hurting your pride?" he asked us pleasantly smiling as ever.

Of course we had. It was not just a ridiculous image, but an issue of trust. They wanted us to stick together to keep an eye on each other. Actually it was both sided. We upheld the façade of reliance, but they wanted to keep us close and we kept all the daggers. Just in case.

"That will be fine," I answered in place of Damon putting my hand on his, to shut him up. That little movement was not overlooked by Elijah. He glanced at our hands, and then smiled as usual, markedly pretending like he didn't see anything.

"I personally would like to hear about the plan first" Damon argued with reason this time while squeezing my hand. Our fingers somehow enlaced themselves at their own free will and we let them like that. It felt natural. And I didn't give a dime about what Elijah thought about us as long as he collaborated. For now, with initiating us to the plan. So I looked expectantly at him too.

"Very well. As I mentioned to you earlier our family was the first in the race of the vampires. We changed at will. Well, at least our mother did" he started to the tale of them becoming what they are, and I presumed there has to do something with the plan. "Back then, our little town was crawling with werewolves, many people died. No one could compete with them. They were fast, smart and strong. In her utmost desperation, my mother turned to the witches to crave protection for our family. They claimed they couldn't grant us protection; they couldn't take sides in the battle of races. But they could provide us with the power to stop them. They call it balance."

"That's really fascinating, but how does this help us?" asked Damon impatiently. I felt a little aggravated myself with all this talk.

Elijah just smiled with a knowing smile and continued the story, not bothering himself with our impatience.

"As you know there's always a way out of the spells of the witches. This spell, what turned us into the fiercest enemies for the werewolves also have an exit."

I felt Damon squeezing my hand so hard, it almost hurt. Yes, I heard the same thing too. Elijah said there's a way out for someone to be a vampire.

"There's a cure for being a vampire?" he asked disbelievingly not exactly making a good job at hiding the hope in his voice.

"Only for us. Our family," said Elijah, and when he saw the long face Damon had hearing that information he said, "Sorry."

"How?" I asked trying to go on with our main subject, to divert Damon's attention from that microflash of hope.

"Julianna asked the power for everyone who belonged to her family. The catch was they didn't interpret family by blood. Julianna had to name her kin. Everyone that she prenominated as a relative became a vampire. And this works backwards too."

"So this means, if Julianna says, Klaus is no longer his son he would cease to be a vampire?" I concluded in awe. I wouldn't imagine it to be that easy. Also, it brought on a question. If that was that simple, why haven't she done it earlier.

"Why did she wait so long to do this?" I phased my concern.

"There's a reason why Klaus hunted us down. In order to take his vampire side away from him we had to unget him. Unanimously, in his presence. And thus far we weren't together since he became known to the fact we're capable of such thing."

Both Damon and I needed a few minutes to digest this information. He thought it over first.

"So you ban him out of your family. He wouldn't be a vampire any more. What will he be?" he asked still a little puzzled.

"Just a werewolf. He was born that, but was made vampire by magic. You can undo magic but you can't undo blood. That is why common vampires like you," he nodded at Damon here, "can't change who they become."

I could literally felt how Damon's blood boiled as a result of that comment. He let go of my hand and stormed out of the room with one last murderous look thrown at Elijah.

I sighed. Yes, blood always got us into trouble.

* * *

><p>From that moment on things went relatively fast. Our team arrived too. We discussed and decided to bring Alaric with his nifty weapons, reconstructed to work on werewolves as well. Caroline seemed like a valuable player too, But Bonnie and Jeremy were about to stay home. I wouldn't want Jeremy to get hurt. He had done his share in the plan and from now on he would just be in the way. Bonnie wanted to stay out of this, and Elijah claimed that no witch was needed to perform the ritual of banishment. So everyone was ready to go. We lacked one person only. Damon.<p>

I found him at the backyard. He was standing next to the stone fence, his usual scotch was placed on the rock banister, and his eyes stared into the distance. He was playing with his ring and didn't turn around at my arrival. I stopped just a foot behind his back.

"Are you all right?" I asked him.

"For a second there I thought I would be able to give you the life you want," he told me on a defeated tone.

Somehow I always knew that his mask of enjoying this big bad-ass vampire life was a play. But I never guessed it was this sensitive spot for him. On the other hand it might have something to do with me. Being in love with someone, who wants us to be something very different must be hard. I felt guilty. I changed him. There were good sides to that change; he ceased to be a maniac killer. But with the good came the urge to be better, to be perfect. He wanted to give me everything, but as a vampire he had limits. Or so he thought.

"What is it that you cannot give me?" I asked quietly.

"Children. Growing old together. Living in one place for a long time. Ordinary life," he counted the things he couldn't do.

I stepped closer to him and wrapped my arms around his waist from behind while resting my head on his back. His heart was beating under my ear.

"When I chose you I accepted everything that comes with you," I started still nestled to his back. "To be honest I'm not sure I want that life."

His muscles gone even stiffer and he went so rigid I haven't even felt his breathing any more.

"I thought you don't want to be a vampire," he said cautiously.

Do I? Don't I? I didn't know just yet. Like I said to Stefan earlier I was too young for these decisions. Who knows what life would bring for us. I might want to have kids in a few years, or I want to get settled. Or maybe I would wish to spend all eternity with Damon. All I know for now is that I was in love with him, and I wanted to enjoy this feeling without contemplating on the consequences or what life holds for me.

"How old were you when you were turned?" I asked him suddenly.

"23," he answered a little dumbfounded by the sudden turn in the conversation.

"I'm making it as my deadline. I will make the decision when I turn 23 too."

That declaration made him spin so he could look me in the face. My hands landed on his hip. The joy that he was trying to hide for I decided to think it over instead of rejecting it altogether was easy to spot, although he made an effort to hide it.

"You know it doesn't matter to me. I want to be by your side whether it's eternity or a lifetime," he whispered to me touching my face. "But does that make me a bad person to want to have you forever?"

I just shook my head.

"As long as it stays my decision," I warned him not to do anything stupid out of love, like he had done before.

"I won't make that mistake again. Forever would be no fun with you hating me," he said with an apologetic smile.

I believed that he learned his lesson. Forcing me into things he thought was good for me was not a way to treat me. I remembered his guilty face when he had apologized me on the morning on his dying day. That look showed that he understood that now.

"Right now I just want to get over with this and have a few years of delight without life and death decisions hanging over my head every day," I rattled out at one breath.

An initiative of a smug smile was started to curve his lips. That's more like it. That was the Damon I loved the most.

"Delight is my specialty," he declared finally with flashing his full grin.

Damon Salvatore was a moody person. One minute he was in agony, the next second he undressed me with those beautiful eyes. A relationship with him would possibly be a rollercoaster. But it would be one hell of a ride!

"I'm sure it is," I mumbled as I laid my head on his chest just under his chin. He stroked my hair and placed a kiss on top of my head. I wanted to stay like that all day, but we had work to do.

Hybrids to de-vampire.

Family to reobtain.

Relationships to close.

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><p><strong>Stay tuned for the next chapter! Co-starring Stefan Salvatore!<strong>


	11. Meeting

Calvin was a non-suspecting teenage boy who only heard of vampires from the movies before. He was as normal as I thought myself to be, before I met the Salvatore brothers. Of course later it cleared up that my whole existence was out of ordinary. I was a supernatural occurrence as Elijah so harshly phrased it. This boy didn't react to the fact that he was a descendant of what he thought were fairy tale monsters like I did to my change of life.

"Cool," he whooped.

Actually I could understand his infatuation on some level. He seemed like a guy who spent more of his school time in trash cans than in the class rooms. Being an offspring to the creatures of the night might mend his assessment. Not like anyone would believe him. Not like he would remember it. As if he would live through this weekend.

No one understands us, just our fellow freaks.

Anyway, Jeremy called and informed us that the detachment of the evil vampires was headed our way. There were suspicious murders that signaled their track just in the neighborhood. We anticipated them this night.

Elijah kindly asked the parents of Calvin to leave their only child alone in the house for the weekend with a bunch of dangerous looking strangers. They haven't objected. Nor did the boy, although there was no need for compulsion on his part.

We had taken over the house by the evening. The night came, but the monsters didn't. By noon even Calvin's enthusiasm lessened and he crashed onto the sofa of their comfy suburban house. The Originals left waiting for our signal to reappear. That was a risk, we knew. Klaus could easily kill us the minute he spotted any of us, but we knew that wasn't his plan. Not his style. He wanted to brag and rub in his power and his success in taking Stefan. Our only chance was the element of surprise. Even he wouldn't be able to take out all of his family when they come back. For one, we suspected he had no silver daggers with white wood ash on them on him by chance, and lacking them even he couldn't kill an Original. So basically that was our plan. Klaus appears, Originals come, Originals expel, Klaus turns werewolf, and we decide if we want to kill him or not. There were many weak points in this scenario starting with Klaus not coming at all, or Klaus killing us on the spot, to the Originals betraying us again. But all we had was this, and I put all my faith in it. It must work.

When the house went silent I stepped out to the front porch. It was a chilly evening and I felt cold but I couldn't stop scanning the street with my eyes. Of course I knew I wouldn't see them walking down the road if they didn't want to, but I kept looking for them. Whether it was in anticipation or in fear of them coming I couldn't quite decide. I wanted to get it over with, I wanted it to end, but on the other hand I was scared. To be honest I was much more terrified to face Stefan then Klaus. I knew what to expect from him, but what Stefan would be like, it was a mystery. So was what my feelings would be when I see him.

I knew now that I loved Damon, and I wanted to be his, but that doesn't mean that after all this I stopped loving Stefan altogether. My feelings towards him calmed and changed but that didn't mean that I would forget that he was my first true love and how much he did for me and Damon. Even if his sacrifices might turned out to be the very thing that made it clear for me that I couldn't be with him anymore. I knew if we could get him back, he would revert back to the Stefan I knew in a span of few agonizing days, but I wouldn't even love that Stefan any more the way I did before.

I was so deep in my thought I didn't even recognized Damon stepping behind me just when he covered my shoulders with a jacket and rubbed my army on both sides to warm me up. I jumped a little in surprise but right after I leaned back a little until my back touched his chest.

It was strange how natural it felt to react to his touches like this. If I thought back I could remember that just a few months before when he touched me I felt a little tingle of warmness I tried to keep under very much and tried even harder to deny. Just now, that it was somehow allowed, I realized that I enjoyed them just as much when they were forbidden.

"Did I scare you?" he mumbled into my hair.

"You are the least scary thing this evening," I told him on a voice I intended to be playful, but came out shaky.

"Well, that's a first," he said, his tone wasn't very wholehearted either.

"I don't know what to say to him," I admitted on a low voice, assured he knew I was talking about Stefan. He understood as he turned me around and leaned in slightly to be able to look me in the eye.

"Leave this to me," he requested. "Believe me, sweet talk won't work here. Let me handle him."

I nodded my approval, but I had my doubt about it. We didn't know how Stefan would act. He might be grateful to see us, but on the other hand we might get on his bad side. Not to mention how would he react if he found out about Damon and me. I wouldn't want that just now.

"Yes, Elena, this is our business," I heard the dreaded voice from behind my back. Damon looked up and I saw his eyes turning dark as he seen the person there. He took a step sideways to be able to face Stefan without me standing between them. How illustrative was that to our situation. I was always standing between them.

"Looking good, brother," Damon said scornfully.

I still couldn't muster up my strength to turn around. It took me another couple of long breaths to summon my courage and confront him. He really was looking good. Strange and different, but good. The warm and stern look disappeared from his eyes and a got replaced with a wild and animalistic light. His features weren't so steely anymore; the lazy smile on his lips was an entirely new expression on him. I might have never seen him so easy. So this was how he looked when he wasn't trying to hold himself back.

They were eyeing each other, trying to size the other one up. Damon was stronger before, but Stefan was on animal blood then. I wouldn't guess the outcome of the battle between them now. Although, I prayed to avoid the collision.

"I see you took good care of Elena for me," Stefan told his brother in a conversational manner but I could hear out a little edge, which screamed that he knew everything. After all, seeing us cuddled like that just a few minutes before told the tale.

"Not for you," Damon retorted with a lopsided smile and fierce eyes. "But yes, I did."

Anger crawled into the eyes of Stefan and I was not sure that infuriating him was the best idea. He looked much stronger than before. Also, there was an all powerful hybrid there somewhere who hadn't showed his fangs just yet. Not to mention the other possible vampires.

"I was sure you won't waste your time, but I'm a little disappointed that Elena caved in so quickly," he said now looking at me. I could only hold his glance for a minute. Actually, I didn't caved in literally, but I was planning to. I didn't cheat on him in effect, but I did let him down. My guilt made me turn my eyes and that was basically a confession. Now was not the right time for explaining.

"What can I say?" Damon said with a triumphant smile, spreading his arms in a can't-help-I'm-hot manner.

He wasn't helping and I was about to start panicking about his negotiation technique when he moved his arms behind his back seemingly in a lazy movement, but during that he removed a vervain syringe from his back pocket. A wave with his free hand signaled me to back off. I took a shaky step backwards hoping that I wasn't too obvious, but I doubt Stefan noticed anything from behind the curtain of his rage.

"I thought you might be a bit grateful," he hissed moving his foot forward, taking an offensive position.

"Yeah," he looked back at me just to wink at me to make sure his brother understood what he was grateful for. I took another step back. "Thanks."

There was just one hiss and Stefan made a dash at Damon in one blurry movement. I couldn't even see what was happening; the wrestle between them was just a blur to me. Sometimes I could make out one of them in that mess, but there was no way to tell who dominated the fight. I retreated back to the door, when I heard a roar and Stefan fall to the floor. The vervain dart stuck out from his chest. Damon stood above him heaving.

"Few weeks of human blood overdose and you think you're stronger than me. Guess what, you're still a few decades behind," he said acidly, but his face and voice turned softer just a few seconds later. "Sorry, bro. It's for your own good."

Now, that Stefan was harmless I dared to approach him. I kneeled beside his unconscious body and took his hand. It was warm, very warm. That meant much human blood in his system. I wanted to suggest dragging him into the house, but then I heard another familiar voice.

"That was cheating you know. I don't really appreciate that."

Klaus was standing in the exact same spot from where Stefan jumped at Damon. I guess he watched the whole show from somewhere hidden, but now he felt the need to interfere. He looked at us with the aura of perfect confidence in his immerse power. Like we were cockroaches to him.

"Playing fair is never effective," sauced Damon, who was not really laded by his authority. Nobody could offend him of being a man of submission. "By the way, the feeling's mutual. I don't like your style either."

"Yes, I'm aware of that," said Klaus with a pitiful smile. "I heard about you being a lone wolf, pun intended. Snatch, eat, erase, is that right? Unlike your little brother you lack the creativity. That's why you cannot join our family. "

When he finished his sentence the other members of his gang appeared out of thin air and aligned behind his back. There were two female and one male vampire. He surely meant them as a threat, but I wouldn't think anyone or all of them together were more of a threat then he alone. For another thing he couldn't scare me anymore. He disgusted me, especially when he addressed massacring a bunch of people creativity. I wanted nothing more than to wipe out that holier-than-thou grin from his face.

"No hard feelings. I don't mind not being crazy enough for your company" Damon shrugged his shoulders. If someone told me a few months before that the world's most powerful creature would choose Stefan over Damon for his evil agenda, because the latter was not as bloodthirsty and unhallowed then the prior, I would certainly laughed them in the face and call them lunatic. Now it made sense. But that didn't mean I would let any of them at his hands.

"He already has a family," I said with more courage and pride that I gave myself credit for while I stood up next to Stefan hiding my hands in my pocket to be able to reach my phone without anyone noticing.

Klaus' smirk was one of unmasked pity. The vampires behind his back snorted too.

"Yes, I can see you two are making an attractive couple."

A slight laughter broke out amongst the minions in appraisal of the wit of their master.

"I didn't mean myself," I said seriously.

Klaus was about to retort when I heard a whooshing sound from behind. I pulled out my hands from my pocket and ended the call I was signaling the Originals with. It was my time to smile when the all-powerful hybrid's face lost his smugness in a span of a nanosecond to make place for a surprised and scared one.

"Brother, I believe you owe us an apology," I heard Elijah's voice from behind my back. "But make it quick, you don't have much time left," he continued with undisguised wrath.

Nothing could have gotten me greater satisfaction right than that the gawping of Klaus.

Seemed like, there's a way to fool a thousand year old creature too. And we did it.

Phase one complete.

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><p><strong>Banishment ritual happens in the next chapter. Or isn't it? Things and scenes just keep popping to my head all the time. Will I ever be able to get to the end of this story? Not sure… I planned it to be a six chapter story to a maximum and look at it now.<strong>

**Please tell me if you like it. Your feedbacks give me the inspiration to continue. Thank you for it!**


	12. Revoking

**A.N.: Hello! Long time no see. Life caught up with me. Read the new chapter of my story with the ritual. Lame or not? Tell me in your reviews! Love,Wil**

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><p>Elijah and his family drew nearer to Klaus while we backed off a little. Caroline and Alaric also came out of the house. Damon instructed them to take Stefan's limp body to the bus. We stayed on the porch to watch the endgame. I wanted to see it over. I wanted to see Klaus go down.<p>

The vampires of Klaus fled the minute they realized their master was in trouble. The hybrid himself stayed at spot, he knew there was no chance he could avoid this. He couldn't wrestle them all. The situation came to a standstill in point of melee. Klaus couldn't kill them, they couldn't kill Klaus, so his condition wasn't an advantage now.

I knew he was trying hard to think out something that would get him out of this dead-fall, but all he could do was looking anxiously at his approaching siblings. They soon circled him, his brothers at his back excluding Elijah, who stood before him with his parents. The women took place on both his sides.

"Niklaus, you have disgraced our family," her mother told him on a thick European accent.

"Family," snorted arrogantly his son. "What kind of family would want to mutilate its son?"

"Any caring one," Julianna responded, seemingly not affected with Klaus's accusations of being cruel.

"You don't care about me," the hybrid shouted defiantly. That was the first time I didn't see him as a monster, but a child of someone.

"I care about all," her mother told him unshaken. I didn't know if the strict face was a result of his disappointment in his son, or that was the only way she could achieve this ritual without cracking. She looked like a very strong women, but she was a mother after all.

Klaus's nostrils flared with rage, he snorted in his impotent fury.

"You made me like this!" he accused Julianna, shouting just a few inches from his face. I could only see her profile from our place at the porch but I noticed a flinch run through it under the charge. That was actually true. Her unfaithfulness was the source of all this.

"And I shall be the one who will make it undone," said her mother regaining her fierceness after the momentary slip.

"You can't do this! I was meant to be this!" begged Klaus.

It really was pathetic but I started to feel a little regret towards that creature. He wasn't worthy of it, but he was so broken and lost right now that for a moment I forgot he was evil right to the bone and just pitied him. I reached for Damon's arm and cling to it, but he hasn't even noticed it. He was so immersed in the drama enfolding itself before us he was blind to anything else. There was no sign of mercy in his eyes. His rapt attention was for vengeful motives. He wanted to make sure Klaus finally gets what deserves.

Julianna's eyes softened too. That was not a good sign. We could just hope a little tantrum from his boy wouldn't melt her heart too much.

"No, you weren't. It was a mistake. My mistake," she said stepping one step closer to the hybrid, who just seemed smaller and smaller with every passing second.

I glanced at the father when her wife said it was her mistake. No emotion was present in his face. Either he became that stoic, or a thousand years of suppliance was enough to calm him down and forgive her woman. The one who seemed to be the head of the pack by the way, because Klaus didn't even shot one glance his way since they had arrived.

"You could have been different. You could have been more. We all hoped you would be the one who will end this war. But instead you started another one," she said softly, gently tracing the face of his son. I thought he would be snatch away from it, but he just set his jaw and hold her gaze sullenly. "It was your choice to walk that road."

The woman held Klaus' face for a little while, but soon stepped back into the circle. Her face gone emotionless again as she begun the ritual.

"The servants of nature granted me the power to sustain the stability in favor of the obligation to execute every threat that could upset the balance," she said on a monotonic voice.

It only took a few seconds for said servants of nature to make an appearance. First I just saw a few shiny little spots flying in the air between them like firebugs. Their light grew stronger and stronger and they started to take a shape. Klaus, in his last desperate attempt tried to break out from the circle, but the witches' spirits threw him back to its centre like he was a ragdoll. When the ghosts of nature's servants filled out every space among the Originals, Julianna continued the rite.

"Niklaus, son to me by blood, no son to me by heart," she said on a stern voice, but a single teardrop rolled down on her cheek. "I deny you. From this moment on you cease to be part of our family and our gift. Hear your father!"

Her voice cracked at her last sentence but there was no turning back from there. The spirit of the witch left to her nodded slowly and hovered down until her transparent feet touched the ground. A tentacle of light spread out of her and connected her to Klaus. The hybrid winced in pain at the joining.

"Niklaus, no son to me by blood, no son to me by heart," I heard the father's voice. He rushed through his part of the speech as if he didn't care at all. He haven't even looked at Klaus, he was talking into nothing. "I deny you. From this moment on you cease to be part of our family and our gift. Hear your sister!"

Another witch accepted his declaration and connected herself with Klaus through the ground. He arched his back in agony now.

Her older sister Marianna was fighting back her tears, but it didn't show in her voice when he spoke.

"Niklaus, son of no one, hereafter you're no brother to me. I deny you."

And it continued like that until every member of their family expelled Klaus except Elijah. He was in great pain, bounded by seven witches, but he still stood and looked defiantly on Elijah. He tried to say something, but no sound came out of his mouth. I looked at Damon who looked back at me. We were thinking the same thing. As we were told there was a situation just like this not so long ago. Back then Elijah betrayed us. Of course that was before he was let down by Klaus himself. I searched for Damon's hand and he squeezed it reassuringly. We were hoping this time Elijah won't fail us.

And he didn't.

"Niklaus, son of no one, hereafter you're no brother to me," he said. He had no tears, there was no hesitation in his voice. "I deny you. From this time forth you stand alone in this world. I let the powers of nature withdraw the great gift they placed in your unworthy hands."

The last witch also nodded and adjoined himself to Klaus. To him, who stood there broken, with unbelieving look in his eyes. I think he hoped until the last minute, that Elijah would spare him again. With the last spirit line connected to him he couldn't stand anymore. He fell onto his knees as the tentacles of light crept higher on his legs. They entangled him like a shiny squid. Ultimately they reached his mouth almost at the same time, and slid into it. Klaus choked and screamed in turns. It was a horrible image but I couldn't bear myself to turn my head. I wanted to see it.

After a few seconds of agony, whilst the witches seemingly cleared his inner self of the vampirism, the tentacles retreated from the man, who collapsed onto the ground. The witches sighed and dissolved. The last one whispered _'Done'_ when she oozed away.

After the screaming and the wind that accompanied the witches stopped the silence now was disturbing. It was a lull of perplexity what usually follows great events. What should we do now? The Originals still circled the heaving Klaus. I stepped from one foot to another on the porch.

Damon broke the hush. He took off in the direction of the vampires, pulling me with him. I couldn't keep up with his long strides, so our hands lost contact.

"Did it work?" he demanded pointing at Klaus when he reached the place of the ritual.

"I believe you heard the lady saying it was done," answered Elijah.

"I don't trust witches," replied Damon with his usual distaste towards nature's servants in his voice, "just my own two eyes."

Elijah's face became a little less decent at Damon's comment.

"And if I may enquire how do you plan to check?"

"Well, my first idea was to rip his heart out," he said, and his remark was welcomed with a few hissing vampires closing on their kin, "but I can see that would cause some displeasure, so I'm willing to come terms with sending him into that house."

Damon pointed to Calvin's house over his shoulder. The vampires retracted their fangs at the much harmless suggestion, and I was very much proud of Damon to be able to think outside the box of violence and hastiness.

"Fair enough," Elijah agreed obligingly and walked to his brother.

"Get up!" he ordered without bending down to him. Klaus was still lying hunched up on the ground but Elijah apparently thought he was all right to get up, because he called his brother, Attila, to make him stand.

The expression on Klaus' face was almost enough evidence for me about the success of the rite. He looked at Elijah with hate and revulsion, but his face held a certain kind of disgrace too, like he was ashamed of himself. These emotions matched someone, who lost all his honored powers. On the other hand he could be the best actor in the world. We had to be sure.

Attila dragged his scarcely opposing brother towards the porch. When they walked past me Klaus tried to attack me. I was in no danger, Attila held him tight, but his hiss towards me was somehow laughable. He wasn't used to being unable to bring out his vampire face, so his threatening move came out much less grim than he wanted it to be. In fact it was more like a rusty groan than a hiss. It could be comical, but I didn't laugh. He was my enemy and he was still a werewolf at the least. It was unadvisable to anger him anymore.

We all followed the two of them to the porch, but then Damon went before them, probably to make sure Calvin, the only present owner of the house wouldn't invite him in by any chance. He nodded Attila to proceed after checking the lobby. The vampire tossed his brother a little and he tumbled into the house. I let out the breath I was holding when he wasn't hold back by an invisible barrier.

"Are you convinced now?" asked Elijah.

"I still rather rip his heart out but that's not dependent to my distrust," Damon said eyeing Klaus who scrambled to his feet.

The mere werewolf took a few steps towards him until their face was just inches from each other. Damon gave him the look of utter disgust.

"Do that!" demanded Klaus proudly. "Do that! Kill me!"

"If you ask so politely - "started Damon, his vampire face creeping to his features.

"Stop!" commanded Julianna. My vampire didn't make a move forward, but he was still vamped out. "Niklaus, leave now!"

Damon's face went back to normal in surprise and I felt astonished myself. Would she really spare him just like that?

"What?" I shouted at the vampire woman."You can't let him go!"

"Our duty was to eliminate the danger to the equilibrium and so we did. He's no threat to the balance anymore," she told me off not even turning towards me. It sounded logical, but given the emotion I seen on her and her family I would rather guessed they won't kill him out of love.

"But he's a threat to people," I opposed.

"So are most of your loved ones," interposed Elijah quietly.

That silenced me. Although I didn't agreed with him on letting loose Klaus, who was a lunatic, but I couldn't confute the fact that most of my friends were vampires or werewolves, who all had their kills. I couldn't think up any cogent con to that accusation.

"Leave now!" Elijah said, turning to his brother. "But note that I will be behind your back on every day of your short life. Expect the punishment for dishonoring your family at any time."

I couldn't agree with that punishing him by not punishing him at all thing, but the look on Klaus's face showed that this was the worst that could happen to him. He was deprived his power which was all he lived for up until now, and from this moment on he had to go on with being a puny werewolf. This was the greatest sentence after all.

Klaus forced that high and mighty look back to his face, but he was just a shadow of his previous self. He held his high up as he left the house, but when Elijah offered him a syringe on his way out, he accepted it. The mark I placed on it was still visible. It signaled that it contained wolfsbane.

Every one of us watched in silence as he walked along the street and disappeared in the darkness.

"He won't live to see the morning," Elijah said and even his voice sounded a little sad."This form of existence is not acceptable to him."

Damon stared into the spot where the former hybrid disappeared.

"Then I'll stay until morning."

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><p><strong>Bam! Klaus out! What do you think? Would you rather kill him off? <strong>

**The next chapter would be more emotion-centered! Please stay with me! **


	13. Closing down

**A.N.: You know what they say… The end of something could be the beginning of something new. This is the end…**

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><p>Two days had passed since we left California. By we, I meant Alaric, Caroline and myself, because Damon, true to his word, stayed at Los Angeles waiting out what would happen with Klaus.<p>

When he returned he looked extremely tired and worn, but relieved. They found the werewolf's body in the woods the evening following the ritual. He was dead. The syringe was empty and with so much wolfsbane in his system he couldn't heal the severe injury on his neck probably caused by himself with a knife that they found next to his body. After all, evil destroyed itself, and I was very much happy about it. He was dead and his death wasn't caused by us. Leastwise, not directly.

Damon told me the Originals burned the body with far too much respect for what he actually deserved. For hours I couldn't even process that information. The shadow that was darkening my days for so long now was gone forever, just to be replaced with another one. The one that was roaring in the basement almost constantly. For the past 48 hours there were only a few hours when he was silent. These were the times, when I could get some sleep, but otherwise I was mostly sitting in my bed and cried as I listened to his endless agony.

I couldn't go down there; I couldn't see him like that. I wouldn't want to see the Stefan I loved in that state. Cursing and spitting all kinds of damning to the head of Alaric and Caroline, because they were the ones trying to sober him up. According to common agreement we fed him with animal blood to clear his head before setting him back on his therapy of controlling his thirst for human blood. I had no idea how long would it take or would he be ever the sane Stefan again.

Another two days passed and I couldn't hear the shouting anymore but I still avoided the basement. On the fifth day I ventured down the stairs, but nowhere near the cellar. Voices came from that direction. It was Damon's. He was talking to Stefan on a quiet tone, but I couldn't make out the words. At any rate, a civilized conversation was definitely an improvement. It was time for me to plan my serious conversation with Stefan, which frightened me more than anything in my life, and that's an understatement.

I sneaked back to the kitchen and sat beside the kitchen island, bending above my diary. It had been ages since the last time I wrote in it, and it seemed that now wouldn't be the time to restore that routine. All I could write would have been the made up conversations between me and Stefan and I was not planning to do that. There was no use to plan that.

Damon's touch on my shoulders startled me; I was so deep in thoughts. I shook a little and he retrieved his hands, although that was not what I meant by that. The intimacy between us lessened, I dare say ceased since we had my official boyfriend locked up below the stairs. It felt wrong to cuddle when he was in pain just in earshot.

Damon lumped down on the chair opposite to me with a bowl of cereal in his hands. He didn't look at me; I think he got that distancing behavior of mine wrong, but I couldn't even tell him that without Stefan hearing me. It wasn't that I didn't want to touch him. In fact I needed his hugs and his caresses more than ever. Like just now, I found myself stare longingly at his fingers, while he was eating. I was started to think out a formula to persuade him my feelings were unchanged, when he spoke up.

"Are you having second thoughts?" he asked between two bites.

My initial reaction was to shush him, but actually it was a much innocent question, it didn't give away much about us.

An idea came to my mind, and I started doodling into my diary. When I was ready I tore that page out of the notebook folded into two and slid the paper to him across the counter. He rolled his eyes at my childish act, but they did gleamed like a teenage boy's would when he unfolded the sheet and saw the heart I drew on it. He creased it back and slid it into his back pocket. A sad and craving smile appeared in his face, urging me to do something. To talk to Stefan. Not about us exactly, but about what happened and how should we proceed. Because now we were stamping at one place.

"I just don't find the words," I admitted quietly, shutting my diary.

"I suggest you to look for them quickly, because I will let him out tonight," he surprised me with that information.

"So soon?" I asked in a little bit of shock.

"No reason to keep him in there. He's all right with bunny blood again. Good as new," he said but his tone wasn't as optimistic as his words.

"But he's still mad at us," I shared my concern with him.

"He has no time to brood over us," he said crunching, and continued when he finished the bite. "He's busy with feeling like utter shit."

Now it was my time to feel bad. It was very selfish of me thinking that his only problem was our relationship status. I should be there for him instead of avoiding him.

"He killed an average of two people per day with zero emotion and then suddenly - "he snapped with his fingers," - guilt. Believe me that is some brutal shit. He would need a few nice words."

If someone, he should know everything about guilt and regret.

"You didn't get any," I said, feeling sorry for not helping him out when he needed forgiveness for his sins.

"Yeah, but unlike Stefan, I'm not a wuss," he said finishing up his breakfast.

"These were your nice words to him?" I rebuked him semi-seriously.

"I used the word 'emotional' when I talked to him. I'm not a senseless dick," he barked back behind his back. "You have a few more hours."

I sighed deeply when he left. That was going to be a hard round.

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><p>That few hours I spent mainly with watching the fire burning in the mantelpiece. There was no reason in contemplating about what I should say to Stefan, I knew that I would forget them the moment I would see him. And as I thought, my mind did gone very much blank when he walked up to the living room accompanied with his brother. Damon looked slightly worried, considering letting us alone or not, but soon he decided it was safe to leave us together.<p>

"I'll be upstairs," he announced and with one quick checking look on both of us he went to his room. This didn't mean he wouldn't hear every word we say.

The only apparent indications that Stefan spent almost five days in the basement locked up in a cellar were that his clothes were dirty and his hair was tussled. Other than that he looked like he always did, except when I saw him in Los Angeles. His face was stern but nice, his eyes were soft and his jaw was set. My eyes couldn't detect any changes in him but my heart could. It didn't react to him the way it had used to. Instead of the fluttering I just felt a tug at my heart-strings. I didn't see my love, I just saw a man. A troubled man.

Stefan just stood there wringing his hand not sure if he could come any closer. I see that I should be the one who make advances to him, so I walked up to him, took his hand and escorted him to the sofa. I sit next to him, showing that I was open and ready for that conversation.

"How do you feel?" I started with a lame question, but nothing else came to my mind, and sitting there in silence was far more awkward.

"Not like the last time," he answered and he did such a long pause that I thought that was all he would say. "The last time I had quit I felt proud. Proud, that I was better than the rest. Because I made it. But I never did. I just feel stupid that I ever thought I was in control and ashamed that I could slip back to it so easily."

"You were forced," I relieved him because that was what he was needed to hear, but the absolution didn't quite came from my heart.

"I was forced to leave with him, but I wasn't forced to stay," he said and for the first time he looked me in the eyes to give a weight to his words. "There was no need."

I nodded but not out of understanding but in the result of my suspicion being justified. He really did enjoyed it. Tears strained my eyes but I forced them back. I had to be strong now.

"It's over now," I offered that for consolation because didn't know how else to react to that. I couldn't say it was all right, or it wasn't a problem, because that wasn't true.

"No it's not. This drinking animal blood thing is just quenches the symptoms but doesn't cure me. I won't make a same mistake again by thinking that it's enough."

I was glad he was the one who said it out loud. It was just like rehab. Identifying and admitting that we have a problem was the key to start the process.

"How do we start?" I asked with a little bit more appreciation towards him.

"I'll leave."

First I hadn't even conceived what he said; it was so far from what I thought of how things would work. I prepared myself for a long period of therapy while I would have to support him.

"You will leave? Alone?" I asked worried. "Is that a good idea? We could help."

"I have trouble looking into your eyes Elena," he admitted quietly and he really hadn't looked at me. "It's for the best. I think I have to sort this out alone."

We sit there in silence for a few long minutes digesting the situation. I thought that it was the cue to our relationship. I figured that was an official break-up; not that we needed that anymore. Time, but mostly the events that happened during our time apart had already split us. In any way soever, I had thought I was prepared for it, and these words were just the repeating of what we already both know, I still felt sad. He was in my heart and he brought so many dear moments to my life, that I felt I lose the part of my heart with him leaving. On the other hand I knew it was for the best.

But there was still one more question we had to clear up. And that looked more difficult to me.

"Stefan, I won't wait for you," I said it out directly.

"Yes, I know," he said and he sounded much more understanding that I expected him to be.

"I know this may be hard for you to accept, but - "I started to explain our predicament with his brother, when he interrupted.

"Actually I rather see you with Damon then with anyone else," he said and he even managed to perform an assuring little smile while facing me.

"Really?" I asked surprised.

"I know how much he loves you, and I know that he would protect you with his life. And he's a good man. Deep under," he mumbled the last comment tauntingly and I presumed that he intended that for Damon if he was eavesdropping. I could imagine his smirk as a result of that. Whatever happened between them, nothing could break their bond.

"He really is," I smiled in relief. "I love him."

"Yes, I always knew that," he nodded.

I arched my brows at the past tense.

"Do you think I would have been jealous if I thought there's no possibility of you to fall in love with him?"

Stefan was full of surprises. He knew that there was something between us with his brother even when there really was nothing more than just friendship - at least from my part - and he didn't make a move to separate us or make a stop to it, because he had respected it. How could someone, who was capable of such horrible things could be so sweet and caring at the same time.

"Whatever you think of yourself Stefan, just know that I think you're a good man. I believe you can rise above this," I said to him completely overcame by emotion.

"Thank you. That means a lot. I know you like lost cases," he said, referring to his brother. He tried to lighten the mood with a little joking, but I kept the conversation sincere.

"You're not a lost case. There's no such thing. Anyone could redeem himself," I told him earnestly.

Another silence fall upon us. We discussed everything we had to, and we stayed civil. That was more that I hoped for.

"When will you leave?" I asked almost conversationally.

"Soon, " he answered mysteriously.

"We should climb to that hilltop again on your last day," I suggested.

He nodded, accompanied with a little smile.

"That would be great."

"Hold on, I'll have my jacket," I said to him and run upon the stairs for my coat.

I wasn't surprised that I didn't find him there when I returned. Farewells were not my strong point either. I stood there with my jacket in my hands and told my last words for him to the wide open door.

"Goodbye Stefan."

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><p>…<strong>and the next chapter will be the beginning. Reviews, please! I live for reviews! <strong>

**Love, Wil**


	14. Opening up

**A.N.: And after the end here comes the beginning, which is the end of this story. I hope you won't be disappointed. I send a huge hug to everybody who read my fanfiction, and an even bigger one the ones who took their time and reviewed it. I hope all of you enjoyed this story as much as I loved to write it. **

**It would be a long summer without Vampire Diaries, but I heard exciting news about DELENA on the show. So let's hope we would see something like this chapter soon enough. **

**Thanks again for reading my story.**

**Love, Wil**

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><p>My feet knew better where I wanted to be more than anywhere right now, because they took me to the door of Damon's room on their own accord. My hand shakily hovered before I knocked, but not in fear, but in anticipation.<p>

When no answer came from inside, I stepped into the grand room and shut the door after myself. Damon stood next to the window, staring at me. He was strained and motionless like a panther before attack. I was the pray and I had no objections about it anymore. Nothing whatsoever.

"He left," I said taking a hesitant step towards him.

"I heard," he answered mimicking my approach.

"Did you got a chance to say goodbye?" I asked now pacing firmly.

"Yes," he said striding towards me.

I realized that our conversation was just a consecution of hollow words. I didn't even know what we were talking about we were just passing the time until we could reach each the other. I said something else during our last steps, but even I couldn't recall what it was and then we crashed together like we were draughty wanderers from the desert seeking refreshing in each other.

And somehow these long weeks of realization and confessions really made us starving for each other, and when we got the chance to sooth our desires we basically attacked each other. The first time I felt Damon's lips on mine for a real kiss was mind-blowing. I have never felt such passion in my life. His kiss was everything like he was, intense, wild and sexy, but sweet at the same time. That was not a nice little kiss, what firsts were usually, but a hungry and impatient one, but I didn't mind it a bit. Damon's kiss should be like this, I never expected it to be anything else. And truth to be told I reacted to it with the same passion. When his fingers slid through my hair and pulled it a little for a better angle I moaned in delight and he deepened the kiss, which caused me to graze my body to his, earning me a groan from him.

We both knew that this intensity couldn't be maintained far, otherwise we would suffocate, but both of us were reluctant to let the other one go. I was the first to come up for air, but he didn't let me far, I heaved just millimeters before his swollen lips and smiled.

The look in his eyes was one of absolute adoration, but I could spot a tiny bit of awe in it, like he still couldn't believe this. I sensed his insecurities through these last months, but I thought that a kiss like this might persuade him, that he was the only one that I wanted. Very much indeed.

I nuzzled even closer to him, so basically the whole length of our bodies touched from head to toe. I was no vampire but from this proximity I could hear his frantic heartbeat and his fast breathing. If I could have soothed my own panting I swear I could have heard his blood running through his veins. The fact that I was the cause of all this was very gratifying. But I wanted much more satisfaction.

I arched my back a little, so our bodies frictioned all the right places and I could offer him my neck at the same time. It was double joy when he leaned on me and kissed the delicate skin just under my jaw line. We gave out all our frustration in our first kiss, so now he was much tenderer. And that suited me too. He could have done anything to me at that moment and I would have enjoyed it, of that I was sure of. My hold on his neck gone weak as he continued his path of kisses downwards. Luckily he slid his hand behind my back when he reached the place between my breasts, because if he wouldn't support me I would have surely collapsed, since my legs have gone weak as a result of his gentle touches.

His free hand came up along my arm until it reached my shoulders to pull down the sleeve of my top. His lips kissed every spot that he bared and I was hoping for that to become a tendency, for his every kiss my caused my body to shook with pleasure. He undressed my shoulder, but the garment wouldn't slither father so he simply tore it off of me.

I shrieked at the sudden movement and started to complain but I immediately shut my mouth when he yanked off the torn t-shirt and I was standing before him in just a black little bra. That stopped him too in his ministrations. He leaned back to have a better view of my almost naked upper body and I could see he liked what he saw. Although I knew he saw Katherine nude before and we looked exactly the same I relished in the fact that he watched every inch of my body like he had never seen anything more beautiful than that.

He watched me for so long I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable when he surprised me with grabbing my hips and moving me beside the king sized bed with vampire speed. I felt a little dizzy but I was not sure it was a result of the sudden motion or because of the skin on skin contact, because he somehow managed to pull his shirt off in the meantime and now held me close to pull me in for another kiss. Yes, I was definitely dizzy because of the kiss. I was somehow grateful, for not letting him do that to me until I was free, because if I could have experienced of what his lips on mine taste, I would surely become an addict. That was happening now.

We didn't break our kiss, not when he unhooked my bra and took it off of me, not when he moved his hands slowly upwards from my hips. I had to let his lips part for a second when he gently traced my breasts with his fingers, just to let out a moan.

The next time we broke apart was when his hands reached the hem of my jeans. He looked at me for approval. As if I could say no to that in this state of mind. As if that wasn't the reason I was coming here tonight. To be finally his.

"Do what you want with me," I heard myself whispering. It was very not like me to offer myself to someone that openly, but I wanted him so much, that I didn't care what he did until it felt good and I loved him so much to trust him to take care of me.

'Ah-ah. Careful with that," he said hoarsely, accompanied with a smirk. "I have a very wild imagination."

The uncertainty was completely vanished from his eyes, the lust and the love expelled everything else. I was certainly hoping he would never doubt my love again. I was about to make sure he wouldn't.

My next kiss was a tender one. It was a love confession without words. And this time he took it without unbelief. He kissed me back, whispering his feelings between two pecks on my lips.

This was our last stop. After that, the passion once again carried us with itself and this time it didn't let us go until it was gratified. At least for tonight.

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><p>The next morning I woke up with a lovely sore in my body and a fluttery feeling in my heart. Images slowly crept back to my mind as I woke up, and the memories put a smile to my face. I stretched and opened my eyes to see the reason of my cheerful mood, but he was nowhere to be seen. I looked around, but obviously he wasn't in the room. I figured that he wouldn't be far, so I started to climb out from the bed to dress up, when he entered the door with a steaming cup of coffee.<p>

"Stay where you are," he ordered me as he handed me the hot drink.

"Am I not allowed to leave your bed?" I asked mockingly after taking sip of the of the wake-up beverage.

"That's the plan," he said peeking under the sheet I kept firmly before me, absolutely out of habit, because there was not a place in my body he hadn't seen, touched or kissed the last night.

I jerked back the cover playfully and enjoyed his lazy smile. His face was completely different today. Happiness totally rearranged his features. The loving look in his eyes and the loose smile on his face was something he should be wearing all the time because, if that was possible, he was even more gorgeous with them on. Or that was maybe because I knew know that he was mine. Anyway, I intended to keep this look on his face from now on. Expect for the tune of one last fooling.

"But I have to leave you now," I said with the most serious face I could manage.

"What?" he asked the panic showing in his handsome face.

"For the bathroom. Can I?" I dropped back behind my back when I was halfway out of the bed. Too soon. He grabbed me, turned me around and placed me on his lap. There was no way I could hold that sheet on me anymore, so I was basically straddling him, nude. Not that I minded. He was just wearing a PJ bottom and our bare upper bodies touched. The wave of passion shot through me in lightning speed as my breasts and his hard chest contacted. His hand traced the bones in my back, but he hadn't advanced any further. He still looked at me like he expected to wake up and realize that nothing had happened between us. His ability to trust was very much challenged throughout the decades.

"I won't run, Damon," I reassured him while caressing his face. "You are stuck with me forever."

My smile and my words did the trick, the casual look, which now I preferred to think was my privilege to see, returned to his face.

"I guess I have to endure it," he said tauntingly and leaned in for a kiss when we heard a knock on the door.

I looked at him questioningly as to inquiry of the early morning visitor's identity.

"It's your BFF, the witch," he informed me, still puckering up his lips when he said 'witch'.

"Do she know I'm here?" I asked wondering.

"I don't think he wants my company," he said distantly, already assuming that I would hide.

Well, that was over. I was not going to keep this hidden before Bonnie, and if she was my friend she would understand. Now was as adequate time as any.

I quickly ran to the bathroom, grabbed a robe and headed for the door. I was pleased to see the satisfaction on Damon's face for affirming our relationship.

I opened the door and found a slightly embarrassed Bonnie before me. She wasn't surprised to see me there, nor at my attire, so I guessed she really was looking for me.

"Hey," I said lamely, because I didn't want to go into explaining.

"Hey," she said briefly looking at me, and then rolled her eyes when he looked behind me.

I turned around suspiciously, and saw Damon comfortably leaning back on one of his elbows in the middle of the rummaged bed, waving ravishingly at my friend with his other hand. His demeanor basically screamed 'Look, we had sex!'. Men, always bragging. I rolled my eyes too and turned back to Bonnie with an apologetic smile about his behavior.

For my surprised Bonnie smiled back.

"Listen, Jeremy and I are going out for a lunch. You should come, "she said to me, then nodded towards Damon. "Both of you."

I stood there with dropped jaws for about half a minute before I could answer. Well, that was easy. I expected Bonnie to disapprove of my relationship with Damon, but it seems she was an even better friend that I gave her credit for.

"Sure, we will be down in five minutes," I told finally.

I shut the door when she left and turned towards Damon who wore an expression of disbelief just like me.

"What just happened?" he asked incredulously.

"I think we are officially a couple," I said digesting that information.

"Huh," came his absent answer, but he soon regained his composure, because he jumped up from the bed and came to me with three long strides.

"So, am I officially allowed to do this?" he asked as he halted before me and leaned in for a kiss. I smiled when our lips met, I was very pleased that it indeed was permitted, and also accepted by all who I cared about. But Damon was not asking only for the license to kiss, that I suspected after he slowly loosened the knot on my robe.

"Damon, I said we will be there in five minutes," I protested weakly about the undressing.

"I can do a lot of things in five minutes," he mumbled huskily and once again I found myself unable to resist.

I was suspecting this would fall into a habit.

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><p><strong>Well, that's a wrap everybody! Or not… I'm considering writing an epilogue about Elena's 23 birthday, but I'm still undecided. So I gave you a little poll, you should answer it in reviews! Vampire Elena or human Elena? I couldn't guarantee to stick with the winner choice - let's blame it on the author's liberty - but I really like to know what would you prefer. So?<strong>


	15. Epilogue

**Epilogue…**

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><p>„Elena, get your pretty ass down here," I heard Damon's voice coming from downstairs.<p>

With one last look at my reflection I was ready. The last time I stood in front of this mirror in my bathroom at the boarding house I was a girl. I turned into a woman during my college years. Sneakers came down from my feet; I was a fan of high heels now. As my featured lost the teenage edge I was starting to look more like Katherine, so I cut my hair to demarcate myself from her. It was now shoulder length I liked it very much. Damon said I was never sexier than now. He also added that there was a high standard. Damon. I always smiled when I thought about him. It was not a secret that when he loved he loved wholly. Being the center of his affection was very satisfying, he was very affectionate. I wonder what he had in mind for me downstairs.

I slowly climbed the stairs of the house that reminded me of my past. It was like another life full of drama and death. My life was different now. I was in control. Everything happened because I wanted it to happen and not because I was dragged into it. I preferred it that way. That was mainly the reason we left Mystic Falls. To try a life away from this place and I have to say it worked. This house was just a transit home for us, a sentimental location.

Damon was nowhere to be seen at the living room, so I headed towards the kitchen to look for him. My heart nearly stopped when I opened the door and a bunch of people all shouted 'Surprise' together. My shock was soon changed into joy as I discovered the faces of my loved ones in the group.

Bonnie was there. My dearest friend, who I kept contact with only virtually nowadays. She held Jeremy's hand like she always did. I was very happy for them.

Caroline brought Tyler with her. I think they would be an item for a long time, the love basically burned in the werewolves eyes when he looked at the vampire. They were the oddest, but cutest couple I knew.

Alaric stood beside his fiancée, Lisa, who was also a professor at the university where Alaric worked lately.

I also saw Matt with her girlfriend who I didn't knew yet.

And at the back of the room there was Damon, smiling contently at my happiness to see all my friends together. I mouthed than you for the gift of reunion and he send an 'I love you' back also without sound.

After a bunch of kisses and hugs later I reached him but he was occupied with an other girl by then. She was pretty and blonde and a little under aged. The only girl I was not jealous of when I saw her near him. Emma, my eight months old niece.

The baby was pulling his hair but he just frowned with a smile.

"She loves you," I commented after breathing a kiss to his lips.

"Thank god she's not as judgy as her mother," he mumbled groaning as Emma let go of his hair pulling a fistful out of it.

"I'm not judgy, I just need good knowledge of someone before I accept them," continued the bickering said mother, Bonnie.

"And until then you give them one or two aneurism," reposted Damon turning the child away from himself as she was aiming for his hair again. They never stopped biting each other, but considering that Damon and I became the Godparent's of the child I would say she was fairly okay with my love now.

"Give her to me, I haven't seen her for ages. Good god, how much do you weigh?" I asked wonderingly as I lifted the adorable little girl.

Bonnie and Jeremy looked at us with the proud adoration only parents could. I was kinda disapproved of them having a kid so young, but my heart melted the minute I saw Emma. Considering she was the closest I would have to a daughter I decided to stop preaching about the consequences of a baby and just started to participate in the babbling myself.

"Elena," Bonnie turned serious."I want you and Damon to promise me to take care of her if anything happens to us."

"Bonnie, what would happen to you? You will live to see her grow up and you will have grandchildren and great-grandchildren."

"I'm not sure I would see them," said Bonnie, but she was not sad, just factual. „But you will, so it will be your duty to watch out for my family."

"It's my family too," I said hugging her with Emma still in my arms."You don't have to ask."

"All right, now. Enough of the cry fest already. It's supposed to be a fun day today," told Damon when we separated, both sobbing. "After all it's Elena's birthday!" he said loudly, emphasizing birthday. On purpose, because it seemed that was the sign for Matt to turn down the lights and to Caroline to enter with the cake.

Jeremy took his daughter from me and I not even tried to suppress the tears of emotion. Damon folded his arms around me from beside and she quietly sang the Happy birthday song into my ear. I blew the 23 candles stuffed into the cake but I didn't make a wish. I had everything I wanted.

Alaric and Lisa brought in champagne for everyone and Damon rose his glass to a toast.

"To Elena, to this and the many following 23rd birthdays that will come," a mild laughter followed his announcement from around us.

Yes, I would have many twenty-third birthdays from now on.

I was a vampire.

I never was happier.

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><p><strong>It is now officially complete. I might write a sequel once, I see some potential in there, but for now I think it's whole. Thank you for everyone who read this. It was very nice reading your feedbacks! <strong>

**Love you all, Wil**


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